Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ASTLEY ALNSLIE HOSPITAL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Beckenham

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that 35 bungalows in the area controlled by the borough of Beckenham cannot be occupied because of the absence of essential fittings; and if he will receive a deputation from the borough of Beckenham Council to go into the whole matter.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I am advised there are 27 temporary houses in Beckenham still awaiting complete sets of internal components. These will be supplied as soon as they are available, and in the circumstances it would not serve any useful purpose for a deputation from the council to be received.

Sir W. Smithers: Why will the Minister not receive a deputation to hear the views of the people on the spot? Is he aware that the inability of about three Ministries to agree with all the rules and regulations is holding up these houses?

Mr. Bevan: I cannot accept the hon. Member's suggestion. It is quite impossible for me to receive a deputation from every authority in Great Britain. I should be doing nothing but receive deputations.

Furnished Houses (Rent Control)

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of Health which local authorities have requested the adoption in their areas of the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946; and how many orders he has issued under Section I and for what areas.

Mr. Bevan: Three hundred and eighty-six local authorities have informed me that they wish to have tribunals and I am circulating the list in the OFFICIAL REPORT. No orders have yet been issued, but I have asked local authorities to submit names for membership and as soon as tribunals can be manned and staffed the necessary orders will be made.

Following is the list:


LOCAL AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE MADE APPLICATION FOR THE FURNISHED HOUSES (RENT CONTROL) ACT, 1946, TO BE APPLIED TO THEIR AREAS.


LONDON.


Metropolitan Boroughs


Battersea.
Kensington.


Bermondsey.
Lambeth.


Bethnal Green.
Lewisham.


Camberwell.
Paddington.


Chelsea.
Poplar.


Fulham.
St. Marylebone.


Greenwich.
St. Pancras.


Hackney.
Stoke Newington.


Hammersmith.
Westminster.


Holborn.
Woolwich.


Islington.





ENGLAND.


BEDFORDSHIRE



Nil.



BERKSHIRE



County Borough


Reading.



Boroughs 


Abingdon.
Newbury.


Maidenhead.



Rural Districts


Abingdon.
Cookham.


BUCKINGHAMSHIRE


Boroughs


Aylesbury.
Slough.


Urban Districts


Beaconsfield.
Newport Pagnell.


Rural Districts


Eton.
Newport Pagnell


CAMBRIDGE


Nil.







CHESHIRE



County Boroughs



Chester.
Wallasey.


Boroughs



Bebington.
Macclesfield.


Urban Districts



Alderley Edge.
Ellesmere Port.


Bowdon.



CORNWALL



Urban Districts



Camborne-Redruth.
St. Austell.


Newquay.



Rural Districts



St. Austell.



CUMBERLAND



Borough



Whitehaven.



Rural Districts



Cockermouth.



DERBYSHIRE



Boroughs



Buxton



Urban Districts



Bolsover.
Swadlincote.


Dronfield



Rural Districts



Repton.
Shardlow.


DEVONSHIRE



County Borough



Exeter.
Plymouth.


Boroughs



Barnstaple.
Tiverton.


Dartmouth.



Urban Districts



Brixham.
Salcombe.


Holsworthy.
Teignmouth.


Rural Districts



Barnstaple.
Kingsbridge.


Honiton.
Newton Abbott.


DORSETSHIRE



Boroughs



Weymouth and Melcombe Regis



Urban Districts



Swanage.



Rural Districts



Blandford.



DURHAM



County Boroughs



Darlington.
Sunderland.


Gateshead.



Urban Districts



Barnard Castle.
Houghton le Spring.


Consett.
Washington.


Rural Districts



Darlington.
weardale


Durham.



ELY, ISLE CF



Urban Districts



Chatteris.
Whittlesey.


ESSEX



County Borough



West Ham.






Boroughs



Barking.
Leyton.


Chingford.
Romford.


Colchester.
Walthamstow.


Ilford.



Urban Districts



Brightlingsea.
Thurrock.


Canvey Island.
Waltham Holy Cross


Hornchurch.



Rural Districts



Braintree.
Tendring.


GLOUCESTERSHIRE



County Borough



Bristol.



Borough



Cheltenham.



Rural Districts



Cheltenham.
Sodbury.


North Cotswold.
Warmley.


HEREFORDSHIRE



Borough



Leominster.



Urban Districts



Bromyard.
Kington.


Rural Districts



Bromyard.



HERTFORDSHIRE



Boroughs



Hemel Hempstead,
Watford.


St. Albans.



Urban Districts



Berkhamsted.
Cheshunt.


Bishops Stortford
Rickmans worth.


Rural Districts



Elstree.
Hertford.


Hatfield.
Watford.


HUNTINGDON



Nil.



KENT



Boroughs



Beckenham.
Hythe.


Bexley.
Maidstone.


Chatham.
Rochester.


Dartford.
Royal Tunbridge


Dover.
Wells.


Gillingham.
Tenterden.


Gravesend.



Urban Districts



Ashford.
Sittingbourne and Milton.


Broadstairs and St. Peters.
Southborough.


Cray ford.
Swanscombe.



Tonbridge.


Rural Districts



Maidstone
Tenterden.


LANCASHIRE



County Boroughs



Blackpool.
Rochdale.


Bootle.
Salford.


Burnley.
Warrington.


Bury.
Wigan.


Manchester.







Boroughs



Ashton-under-Lyne.
Haslingden.


Crosby.
Nelson.


Eccles.
Stretford.


Fleetwood.



Urban Districts



Dalton-in-Furness.
Turton.


Fails worth.
Ulverston.


Formby.
Urmston.


Fulwood.
Walton-le-Dale.


Longridge.
Westhoughton.


Royton.
Whitefield.


Skelmersdale.



Rural Districts



Nil.



LEICESTERSHIRE



County Borough



Leicester.



Borough



Loughborough.



Urban Districts



Hinckley.
Oadby.


Melton Mowbray.



Rural Districts



Ashby-de-la-Zouche.
Market Bosworth.


Barrow-upon-Soar.



LINCOLN (HOLLAND)



Nil.



LINCOLN (KESTEVEN)



Boroughs



Grantham.



LINCOLN (LINDSEY)



Boroughs



Louth.
Scunthorpe.


Urban Districts



Market Rasen.



MIDDLESEX



Boroughs



Acton.
Hornsey.


Brentford and Chiswick.
Southall.



Twickenham.


Finchley.
Wembley.


Hendon.
Willesden.


Heston and Isleworth.
Wood Green.


Urban Districts



Enfield.
Ruislip Northwood.


Feltham.
Staines.


Harrow.
Uxbridge.


Potters Bar.



NORFOLK



Nil.



NORTHAMPTON



Boroughs



Brackley.
Kettering.


Urban Districts



Corby.
Rushden.


NORTHUMBERLAND.



County Boroughs



Newcastle-upon-Tyne.



Boroughs



Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Wallsend.


Blyth.



Urban Districts



Hexham.
Newburn.





NOTTINGHAM SHIRE



Boroughs



Newark.



Urban Districts



Beeston and Stapleford.
Sutton in Ashfield



West Bridgeford


Carlton.



Rural District



Bingham.



OXFORDSHIRE



County Borough



Oxford.



Borough



Woodstock.



Rural Districts



Banbury.
Witney.


PETERBOROUGH (SOKE OF)



Nil.



RUTLANDSHIRE



Nil.



SHROPSHIRE



Boroughs



Shrewsbury.
Wenlock.


Urban Districts



Oakengates.



SOMERSET



Urban Districts



Clevedon.
Portishead.


Crewkerne.
Shepton Mallet.


Keynsham.
Wellington.


Minehead.



Rural Districts



Frome.
Wellington.


Long Ashton.



SOUTHAMPTON



County Borough



Bournemouth.



Boroughs



Aldershot.
Romsey.


Basingstoke.
Winchester.


Christchurch.



Urban Districts



Alton.
Havant and


Farnborough.
Waterloo


Rural Districts



New Forest.



Ringwood and Fordingbridge.



STAFFORDSHIRE



County Borough



Wolverhampton.



Boroughs



Newcastle-under-Lyme
Wednesbury.


Urban Districts



Amblecote,
Tettenhall.


Cannock.
Wednesfield.


Rugeley.



Rural District



Lichfield.



SUFFOLK (EAST)



Boroughs



Beccles.
Lowestoft.






Urban Districts



Bungay.
Woodbridge.


Leiston-cum-Sizewell.



Rural Districts



Deben.
Samford.


Lothingland.



SUFFOLK (WEST)



Urban District



Newmarket.



Rural Districts



Melford.
Thingoe.


Mildenhall



SURREY



County Borough



Croydon.



Boroughs



Barnes.
Mitcham.


Beddington and Wellington.
Reigate.



Richmond.


Guildford.
Sutton and Cheam


Kingston-on-Thames.
Wimbledon.


Malden and Coombe.



Urban Districts



Carshalton.
Frimley and Camberley.


Chertsey.



Esher.
Haslemere.


Farnham.
Merton and Morden


Rural District



Guildford.



SUSSEX (EAST)



County Borough



Hastings.



Borough



Hove.



Urban Districts



Burgess Hill.
PortsIade-by-Sea.


Newhaven.



Rural District



Cuckfield.



SUSSEX (WEST)



Boroughs



Chichester.
Worthing.


Urban Districts.



Shoreham by Sea.



Rural Districts



Chichester.



WARWICKSHIRE



County Boroughs



Birmingham.
Coventry.


Boroughs



Rugby.
Warwick.


Stratford-on-Avon.



Rural Districts



Atherstone.
Tamworth.


Rugby.



WESTMORLAND



Urban District



Windermere.



WIGHT, ISLE OF



Borough



Ryde.






WILTSHIRE



Boroughs



Calne.
Salisbury.


Urban Districts.



Bradford-on-A von.



WORCESTERSHIRE



Boroughs



Kidderminster.
Stourbridge.


Urban Districts



Malvern.



Rural Districts



Tenbury.
Upton-upon-Severn


YORKSHIRE, EAST RIDING



Kingstone-upon-Hull.
York.


Boroughs



Bridlington.



Urban Districts



Haltemprice.
Norton.


Hornsea.



Rural District



Howden.



YORKSHIRE, NORTH RIDING



County Borough



Middlesbrough.



Borugh



Thornaby-on-Tees.



Urban Districts.



Eston.
Whitley.


Guisborough.



Rural Districts



Flaxton.
Helmsley.


YORKSHIRE, WEST RIDING



County Boroughs



Doncaster.
Sheffield.


Halifax.
Wakefield.


Leeds.



Boroughs



Batley.
Pudsey


Harrogate.
Ripon.


Urban Districts.



Bentley-with-Arksey.
Knaresborough


Castleford.
Mexborough.


Conisbrough.
Penistone.


Garforth.
Rawmarsh.


Horbury.
Saddleworth.


Rural Districts



Hernsworth.
Rotherham.


Osgoldcross.
Wortley.


WALES AND MONMOUTH SHIRI



ANGLESEY



Borough



Beaumaris.



Urban District



Amlwch.



BRECONSHIRE



Rural District



Ystradgynlais



CAERNARVON



Borough



Bangor.



CARDIGANSHIRE



Nil.







CARMARTHEN



Borough



Llandovery.



DENBIGHSHIRE



Boroughs



Cohvyn Bay.
Wrexham.


Ruthin.



Rural Districts



Ruthin.



FLINTSHIRE



Borough



Flint.



Rural Districts



Hawarden.
St. Asaph.


GLAMORGANSHIRE.



County Boroughs



Cardiff
Swansea


Borough



Barry.



Urban Districts



Aberdare.
Penarth.


Gelligaer.
Pontypridd.


Maesteg.
Porthcawl.


Ogmore and Garw.
Rhondda.


Rural Districts



Cowbridge.
Penybont.


MERIONETHSHIRE



Urban Districts



Barmouth.
Towyn


MONMOUTHSHIRE



County Borough



Newport.



Boroughs



Abergavenny.
Monmouth.


Urban Districts



Bedwas and Machen.
Abercarn.


Bedwelty.



Rural Districts



Pontypool.



MONTGOMERYSHIRE



Nil.



PEMBROKESHIRE



Borough



Pembroke.



Rural Districts



Cemaes.
Narberth.


RADNORSHIRE



Nil.

House, Eaton Square, S.W.1

Mr. Beswiek: asked the Minister of Health, why the house in Eaton Square, S.W.I, now being used by the Instituto de Espana was not requisitioned for housing purposes.

Mr. Bevan: The powers delegated to the clerks of local authorities are for the requisition of unoccupied properties. This

house has been occupied throughout the war.

Rent Restriction

Mr. Lever: asked the Minister of Health whether he will extend the provisions of the Rent Restriction Acts to safeguard tenants not at present protected from unreasonable demands for increased rents under threat of eviction, in view of the fact that a date has now been given for the termination of leases for the duration.

Mr. Bevan: The question of extending the scope of the Rent Restriction Acts will be considered in connection with the general review of the provisions of those Acts, but I can hold out no prospect of early legislation.

Mr. Lever: In the meantime, will my right hon. Friend do something for the innumerable working and middle-class tenants who have no protection, by compelling or impressing upon local authorities the need for much freer use of their requisitioning powers than has hitherto been the case?

Mr. Bevan: I have on many occasions impressed on local authorities not only the need to requisition premises to provide accommodation for those without it, but also the effect of requisitioning upon the price of houses.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Would the Minister consider appointing a Select Committee on this matter with a view to the codification and rationalization of the Rent Acts and the provision of a comprehensive scheme for the future?

Mr. Bevan: There was a committee on this matter which has reported. At the moment our main difficulty is not wisdom but time.

Reconditioning, Rural Areas

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that many cottages in rural areas have been scheduled by local authorities as qualifying for assistance under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts, but that work is being held up pending the introduction of legislation already foreshadowed; and whether he will take steps to encourage the owners of such houses to commence at once work for which labour and materials are available.

Mr. Bevan: I do not feel justified in giving special facilities for this work at the present time. When I receive the report which I have asked the Rural Housing Sub-Committee of my Central Housing Advisory Committee to make, I will reconsider the question in the light of their report and of the position in regard to labour and materials at the time.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Will the Minister make an announcement to the effect that, if any legislation is introduced, it would be made retrospective?

Mr. Bevan: There is nothing at all preventing reconditioning from being done now. There is plenty of opportunity for people to recondition their property if they wish to do so. What I cannot agree with is that there is any more need to give subsidies to private property owners in rural areas than in urban areas.

Mr. E. P. Smith: Can the Minister say when he is likely to receive the report to which he referred?

Mr. Bevan: I am hoping to get it quite shortly.

Building Licenses, St. Margaret's Bay

Mr. O'Brien: asked the Minister of Health how many permits the Dover Rural District Council have granted for work in the St. Margaret's Bay area; and how many workmen are involved by the sanctions for that work.

Mr. Bevan: I understand that 29 licenses issued by the Dover Rural District Council for work in the St. Margaret's Bay area are still operative, and that the number.of men engaged on the licensed work is 70.

Mr. O'Brien: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that at least 30 skilled workmen are now engaged in carrying out repairs and alterations at a house called The Hermitage, St. Margaret's Bay, Dover, recently purchased by Mr. Clarence Hatry; that resentment is caused in Dover and elsewhere at this use of so many workmen for a private purpose when war damage repairs and the building and rehousing programmed need all available labor; and if he will make inquiries to ascertain if the number of workmen employed at The Hermitage is justified.

Mr. Bevan: Inquiries have been made and I am informed that a licence was issued by the Dover Rural District Council on 13th March for repairs to this house costing £500. On Monday morning, when one of my officers visited the site, six skilled men were employed on this work. I am having further investigations made.

Mr. O'Brien: May I ask the Minister if he can justify 17 men working on the garden of this house and another eight on lowering the cliff path in order that passers by might not oversee into the garden, and will he consider further inquiry into this particular matter?

Mr. Bevan: In answer to the first part of the question, I am under no obligation to justify it, because I did not undertake the work, but I will certainly undertake to investigate it. I am informed that there has been quite a considerable amount of exaggeration, and that a great deal of this work that lies outside the £500 is work upon which men are engaged in repairing war damage.

Building Materials Priority

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Minister of Health whether he will make it clear to local authorities that they are empowered to issue W.B.A. symbols in respect of materials ordered from builders' merchants for repairs of an urgent nature essential for the preservation of existing accommodation on the same basis as those now issued in connection with the provision of additional housing facilities.

Captain John Crowder: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that local authorities are finding it impossible to obtain supplies of materials from builders' merchants for urgent repair works where a sanitary breakdown endangers the health of the occupants, where urgent structural repair is necessary to avoid collapse and where work is required by statutory notice or under bye-laws; and if he will therefore arrange for priority certificates to be issued for materials required for work of this nature.

Mr. Bevan: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave to similar Questions on 9th May about the supply of materials for urgent and essential repairs. Local authorities are not empowered to grant priority symbols, for maintenance and repair work, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works


and I do not wish so to empower them. Arrangements have, however, been made whereby builders' merchants who supply materials in good faith for certain classes of urgent repair work can obtain priority, if required, for the necessary replacements, and I think that this will get over the difficulties. I am sending the hon. Members a copy of an explanatory circular which has been sent to local authorities on the subject.

Captain Crowder: Is the Minister aware that public health committees are seriously perturbed by the absence of priority facilities so that landlords and tenants can comply at once with the orders given by their sanitary inspectors, and that Circular No. 146 does not give these necessary priorities, so that landlords and tenants can carry out this work?

Mr. Bevan: It is perfectly true that the first effect of the circular was to prevent repair work being done that they wanted to have done, but the new circular will enable those priorities to be claimed.

Captain Crowder: Will the Minister send me a copy of the new circular?

Mr. Bevan: Certainly, Sir.

Mr. Skinnard: Is the Minister aware that practice varies as between one administrative area and another, and that some local authorities are actually issuing W.B.A. priorities for replacements? Is he also aware that neighboring authorities which do not do so are having extreme difficulty in getting materials for builders and plumbers engaged on urgent repairs, because builders' merchants are disregarding his instruction to release small quantities without requiring symbols?

Mr. Bevan: There has been difficulty, which is inevitable in the circumstances. We are very anxious to prevent building materials going into black market repair work, and it is inevitable that, when we tighten up the supply of materials, some people will find themselves in difficulties. It is much easier to relax the operation of the circular than it is to prevent black market operations in building materials.

Mr. Bossom: Can the Minister say if his reply applies equally to the essential reconditioning of rural cottages?

Mr. Bevan: Certainly, it does.

Orpington

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Health if owing to difficulties experienced by private builders in the Orpington division, he will give the same facilities for obtaining the necessary materials, such as slate and lead damp courses, lead, guttering and rain-water down pipes, both in cast iron and in asbestos, to these builders, especially those engaged on local authority contracts, as to the local authorities.

Mr. Bevan: A private builder who is in possession of a building licence already has the same facilities for obtaining materials as a local authority. In neither case is priority given to work of maintenance and repair which does not result in an increase of accommodation.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Minister aware that there are over 2,000 families— not persons— wanting houses in the Orpington area, and that, if these regulations were removed, the work would be done much quicker?

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member is given to making what are quite often irrelevant obiter dicta on the matter.

Sir W. Smithers: " Et tu, Brute."

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH

National Health Service (Consultants)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Health when he intends to make a statement as to the financial terms to be offered consultants under the proposed new National Health Service.

Mr. Bevan: This will be a matter for discussion with the profession when Parliament has settled the general structure of the new service.

Aural Aids

Mr. Touche: asked the Minister of Health when the new aural-aid outfit will be available to the public and how supplies will be sold.

Mr. Bevan: As yet, we have only the blue print, but we are pressing on with arrangements for manufacture and distribution. There will be no avoidable delay, and I will make a further announcement as soon as I can.

Mr. Edward Evans: Before the Minister issues this appliance, will he ensure that there are set up throughout the country the facilities for the proper examination of people who are hard of hearing in order that they shall not be induced to part with money for hearing aids that are not suitable?

Mr. Bevan: I hope to make a number of arrangements; in the first place, for preventing the exploitation of this apparatus, which has been produced by the Post Office, and in which there ought to be no private enterprise interests at all; and, next, to provide facilities for the proper diagnosis of hearing difficulties so as to adjust the apparatus to the nature of the individual case.

Emergency Hospitals (Policy)

Dr. Segal: asked the Minister of Health whether he will give an assurance to existing E.M.S. hospitals, that they wilt continue to be retained until such time as a coordinated hospital policy can be carried out.

Mr. Bevan: As the commitments of the Emergency Hospital Scheme contract, the scheme itself must contract; and I cannot therefore give my hon. Friend this assurance. I can, however, assure him that no emergency hospitals are given up without first considering the probable future needs of the hospitals services.

Dr. Segal: Is the Minister aware that many of these hospitals are losing their emergency nursing staffs, such as married nurses and V.A.Ds., because of their uncertainty as to what is the future policy, and that enormous sums of public money have been spent on converting and equipping these hospitals? In view of the desperate need of hospital accommodation, why cannot the Minister give the hospitals a temporary assurance that they will be retained?

Mr. Bevan: I am surprised to learn that there is any misunderstanding about future hospital policy. I thought it was perfectly clear. It may not be universally approved, but it is certainly clear. With regard to emergency hospitals, I have no Parliamentary authority to provide hospitals, except for patients intended to be treated by the emergency hospital service. That is my difficulty and, until we get the new powers, the Ministry of Health cannot own hospitals.

Dr. Segal: May I press upon the Minister the necessity of realising that the needs of the sick population of this country should be paramount, and that there should be no question of closing hospital beds until alternative accommodation is provided?

Mr. Bevan: I am afraid no Minister of the Crown can act except within the authority agreed by Parliament, and I cannot make available to people hospital facilities which Parliament has not agreed.

MORTUARY ATTENDANTS (WAR GRATUITIES)

Mr. John Lewis: asked the Minister of Health if he will specify the particular documents which were handed to CD. personnel when they were transferred to duties of mortuary attendants during the war, which made it clear to these men that they were not employed in the CD. general services and that, therefore, they were not entitled to post-war credits and gratuities.

Mr. Bevan: Such matters were for the individual scheme making authorities and no special notices were used; in any case, the postwar credits and gratuities schemes were not announced till November, 1942, and March, 1945, respectively.

Mr. Lewis: Would the Minister say if he thinks it is fair that people transferred from Civil Defence general service to the unenviable task of duty in a mortuary should lose their gratuities?

Mr. Bevan: I am afraid that the transfer of workers during the war created a whole series of anomalies with which it is not possible to deal.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Demobilised Teachers

Mr. Ralph Morley: asked the Minister of Education how many of the 20,000 teachers in the Forces have now been released under Class A and Class B.

The Minister of Education (Miss Ellen Wilkinson): Up to 30th April, 8,491 teachers, including Scottish teachers, had been released from the Forces in Class B. No information is available on the number released in Class A, but up to 31st March, 1946, the total number of teachers


who had returned from all types of war service to schools or colleges maintained or aided by local education authorities in England and Wales alone, was 13,467. The total number of English and Welsh teachers released, which should be compared with the figure of 20,000 mentioned by my hon. Friend, cannot be stated precisely, but it must be substantially more than 13,000.

Teachers' Training

Mr. Georg Thomas: asked the Minister of Education on what date she proposes to open the Llandrindod Wells Emergency Training College; and if she is aware that there is a considerable longer delay for Welsh students accepted for training than there is for those accepted for one of the English entrench training colleges.

Miss Wilkinson: I hope that this college will be opened some time in the autumn, but I cannot be more precise until further progress has been made with the work of alterations to the buildings. Candidates wishing to train in Wales, who just missed gaining admission to the first Welsh Emergency Colleges, will probably have longer to wait than English candidates who became available at about the same time, but I seen no reason to believe that, on the average, Welsh candidates will have longer to wait than candidates wishing to train in England.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that the Llandrindod Wells Emergency Training College was, first of all, promised to be opened at Christmas, then again at midsummer and, now, in the autumn, and is she further aware of the extreme hardship caused to those people who have been accepted and who find it difficult to get another job while waiting to go in?

Miss Wilkinson: We hope to get these premises finished by the time stated, but there is the shortage of labour and material. With regard to the hardship caused to those waiting to go in, some of them are being offered places in English colleges and, as the hon. Member knows, we are taking certain steps to help those who are kept waiting for a considerable period.

Mrs. Leah Manning: asked the Minister of Education whether she will consider doubling the output of emerg-

ency-trained teachers by basing on specially selected schools the training of an equal number of ex-Service men and women to those entering emergency colleges.

Miss Wilkinson: The emergency training scheme is designed to provide an intensive course combining practical experience in the schools with personal study, and the students require proper facilities for both teaching practice and study under the guidance of staffs who can concentrate on the special problems of training ex-Service men and women as teachers. I do not think that the arrangements suggested by my hon. Friend could be expected to yield the results desired.

Mrs. Manning: Is my right hon. Friend aware that quite a number of men who are waiting for places in emergency training colleges have now waited so long that they have found jobs which are suitable to them and are giving up their places in such colleges and that we shall lose them to the teaching profession? Further, may I ask the Minister why she thinks that this is not a suitable method for training teachers when the basis of the scheme is regarded as one year college and two years school?

Miss Wilkinson: With regard to the first part of the hon. Lady's question, we keep our figures up to date on that matter and it is only a small proportion who have found work. If they have found work suitable to them, I can only wish them good luck in that work. We have a very large number of applications— far more than we can accommodate. We are trying our best, but we have told people that, in the present circumstances, a wait of several months is inevitable. With regard to the second part of the question, I have nothing to add to my answer.

Mrs. Manning: asked the Minister of Education why ex-Servicemen and women over the age of 21 are precluded from taking two and three year training college courses.

Miss Wilkinson: Ex-Servicemen and women over 21 are not precluded from taking two and three year training college courses, but if they wish to obtain special financial assistance for such training under the Further Education and Training Scheme they must satisfy my Department that there is some special reason why the


longer course is more appropriate in their case than the intensive course under the Emergency Training Scheme.

Mrs. Manning: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the principals of training colleges can be informed that students whom they have accepted under a misapprehension may have their cases specially examined, because some people who have been accepted are now being turned down?

Miss Wilkinson: I do not think that any principals of training colleges are under a misapprehension on this matter. The point has been made perfectly clear to them in circulars.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Minister of Education whether, in view of the fact that 14,400 men and women who have been accepted as suitable for training, the majority ex-Service personnel, are now awaiting vacancies in emergency training colleges, she will state the action that her Department intends to take in the matter.

Miss Wilkinson: A circular on this subject has just been issued, and I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

Mr. Lindsay: This circular is not yet out, and I would ask my right hon. Friend whether such circulars ought not to be made known to this House and whether she agrees that, even if the number of colleges is doubled, there will still be 10000of these potential teachers without any accommodation for three years and that, at the moment, His Majesty's inspectors are recruiting further personnel from the Forces for the teaching profession?

Miss Wilkinson: I recommend the hon. Member to read the circular first and, then, if he wishes, to put down a Question.

Woman Teachers (Pregnancy)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Minister of Education if she is aware of the decision of the Glam organ County Council to dismiss a married woman teacher on grounds of pregnancy; and whether she proposes to take action under Section 68 of the Education Act, 1944, to prevent this dismissal

Miss Wilkinson: I understand that the Glam organ Education Committee have

discussed the question of terminating the employment of a married woman teacher on grounds of pregnancy, but that no teacher has, as yet, been dismissed in such circumstances. In my opinion, the dismissal of a married woman teacher in any county or voluntary school solely on grounds of pregnancy is precluded by Section 24 (3) of the Education Act, 1944. In other cases I have advised that suitable periods of leave of absence should be granted. This opinion is being brought. to the notice of the local education authority.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that her reply will give satisfaction throughout the teaching profession?

Gastro-enteritis, Leeds

Mr. Stamford: asked the Minister of Education whether the investigations of the schools medical section of her Department into the recent outbreak of gastro enteritis among a large number of children attending schools in West Leeds have been completed; and, if so, what they have revealed as to the cause of the out break.

Miss Wilkinson: I have received an interim report from one of my medical officers which shows that the outbreak affected some 260 children from 14 schools in Leeds served by one central kitchen. The investigation, which is being conducted by the local authority, is not completed and the cause of the outbreak, which though widespread does not appear to have been serious, has not yet been determined. I will communicate with my hon. Friend when I receive the final report.

Development Plans

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Minister of Education how many local education authorities, distinguishing counties and county boroughs, have submitted their development plans to her Department.

Miss Wilkinson: Complete development plans have been submitted by four county authorities and 15 county borough authorities. In addition, seven county authorities have submitted an installment; of the plan. One hundred and nineteen authorities have asked for extensions of time under Section 11 (1) of the Act.

Mr. Lindsay: I realise that certain authorities are asking for extra time; can my right hon. Friend tell me whether I am right in presuming that this will not delay any immediate building?

Miss Wilkinson: No, Sir.

Examination Proposals

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Minister of Education whether parents are being consulted on the new examination proposals; and whether they will be represented on the Secondary Schools Examinations Council.

Miss Wilkinson: I shall certainly give full weight to the views of parents' associations and similar bodies on the examination proposals. I also intend that the reconstituted Council shall include one or more persons qualified to speak for the ordinary parent.

Newcastle-under-Lyme

Mr. Mack: asked the Minister of Education what steps are being taken to provide additional higher school accommodation for girls in the Newcastle-under-Lyme area; and whether approval will be given for the use of Clayton Hall, pending the erection of a modern school to meet the educational requirements of the district.

Miss Wilkinson: I look forward to receiving the development plan for the Newcastle-under-Lyme area which should indicate the full requirements of the area both for additional secondary and primary school facilities. I understand that the local education authority regard a new grammar school for girls as the project deserving first priority in the plan. if the Admiralty are able to release Clayton Hall in reasonable time and the authority can get a lease on reasonable terms, I should be ready to entertain a proposal, in advance of the development plan, for minimum adaptations to the buildings, so that they may be used temporarily, as a grammar school for girls, until permanent provision can be made in conformity with the building regulations.

Mr. Mack: Will the Minister not appreciate, having been a girl herself, the overwhelming need in Newcastle-under-Lyme for girls' education, and will she undertake to hasten her Department in providing the appropriate building?

Miss Wilkinson: We are very anxious that there should be an appropriate building. This hall could only serve as a temporary building, and we are waiting until we get it released from the Admiralty.

Furniture and Equipment

Mr. Dryden Brook: asked the Minister of Education whether any census has been taken of the likely demand for furniture and other school equipment when the new age group has to be provided for; and whether any use is being made of the surplus equipment at the disposal of the Ministry of Supply.

Miss Wilkinson: Yes, Sir. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of an inquiry which was addressed to local education authorities about school furniture required for the raising of the compulsory school age. Action is now being taken, in consultation with the other Departments concerned, to ensure that the furniture will be available when required. The possibility of making use of Government surplus stores has been explored and already purchases have been made by local education authorities and schools under the arrangements made by the Ministry of Education with the disposal Departments.

WIRELESS RECEPTION, EAST ANGLIA

Mr. Hare: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is prepared now to consider reopening the transmitter station at Ipswich, which operated during the war, in view of the continued poor wireless reception in East Suffolk and other parts of East Anglia, despite his promised efforts to improve the medium wave regional service in those areas.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): I regret that it is not practicable to reopen the station at Ipswich, as a. wavelength cannot be spared for this purpose. A new mast is being erected, however, at the B.B.C.'s station at Brook-mans Park; it is hoped to complete the work by the autumn and this will enable the B.B.C. to effect the promised improvement in reception of the regional service in East Suffolk.

Mr. Hare: Is the hon. Gentleman right in saying that an additional wave length is needed? I understand that it is merely


a retransmitting of an existing service, and that this service which existed during the war and closed down in July, 1945, cannot easily be restarted until additional improved arrangements have been made.

Mr. Burke: During the war we had only two programmes. Now we have seven regional programmes. There is not a wave length to spare and, in any case, the Ipswich transmitter covers only five miles and would not benefit the rest of East Suffolk.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Telephone Service, Pinner

Mr. Beswick: asked the Assistant Postmaster General if he is aware of the unsatisfactory service provided by the Pinner Telephone Exchange, which must be heavily overloaded; and what measures are being taken to improve that service.

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir; the difficulties which arise are mainly due, as in the case of other London exchanges, to shortage of experienced operating staff, but special steps are being taken and an improvement should be noticeable soon.

Mr. J. Lewis: May I ask if shortage of staff is the cause of the difficulty in taking 20 minutes to get Directory inquiries on Sunday morning?

Registered Parcels

Mr. Henry Nicholls: asked the Assistant Postmaster General if he will now restore the facilities under which registered parcels can be accepted by sub-post offices after 4.0 p.m.

Mr. Burke: Yes, Sir; arrangements are being made for registered parcels to be accepted at sub-offices up till the closing hour of the office.

Storemen (Promotion)

Mr. Weitzman: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is aware that although notional promotion was promised to civil servants on war service and that immediately on their return to civil life they would receive the appropriate rate of pay, storemen in the employ of the Post Office have not on their return received such rate of pay; and if he will take steps to remedy this position.

Mr. Burke: Storemen in the Post Office who were promoted to warehousemen, or

packers and porters promoted to store-men, whilst absent with the Forces, draw the higher pay on their return if they take up the higher duties. This accords with the rule applicable to the Civil Service generally. The detailed application of this rule in the Post Office stores and factories departments is at present under consideration by the Whitley body representing the staff concerned.

Mr. Weitzman: If I give the minister details of cases where the practice which he suggests is not carried out, will he have them thoroughly investigated, and if they are proved will he have them remedied?

Mr. Burke: I have said that the details of this matter are being discussed by the appropriate bodies, but if my hon. Friend can send me details of any cases I will look at them.

COLOUR BAR (LICENSED PREMISES)

Mr. George Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the colour bar now increasingly in operation in places of entertainment, as instanced by the case of a West Indian airman stationed at Athan Camp, who was refused admission, although in the King's uniform, to the Capitol Ballroom, Cardiff, on Easter Monday night because of his color, he will issue a circular to local authorities advising them to withdraw the licence in such cases.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): My inquiries about the particular incident show that the refusal of admission was not based on any color bar, and my information is that at Cardiff as elsewhere the general attitude of the public has been one of welcome to the Colonial airmen whose gallant services are appreciated. I doubt whether it would be appropriate for me to issue instructions about proceedings before licensing justices, but I take this opportunity of repeating my strong condemnation of any colour bar in connection with licensed premises, and I am sure that condemnation is shared by responsible public opinion throughout the country.

Mr. Thomas: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, and accepting wholeheartedly his statement about the public at Cardiff, may I ask if it is now


clear that offensive action of this sort against British citizens, who have left their own motherland to come to Britain, will be dealt with by the Home Department when places are dependent upon a public licence?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I do not grant these licences. They are granted by the appropriate persons in the localities, but I hope the expression of opinion that I have given will be borne in mind by such people when they are considering objections that may be raised to the renewal of licences, or in other ways have to deal with the subject.

PRISONS (RECONSTRUCTION)

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has considered the speech made by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police on 13th May, in which prisons in Britain were described as a disgrace; and what plans are in hand for the reform of prison buildings when labor and materials are available.

Mr. Ede: There is no fear that when labor and materials become available reconstruction projects will not be ready. The programmed is first to provide certain minimum security establishments, and when larger building schemes become practicable, to provide establishments for special purposes, such as prisons specially designed for women and an establishment for psychopathic cases. The ultimate aim is the complete remodeling of the prison establishments, but that will inevitably take time.

FIRE SERVICE (QUALIFICATIONS)

Miss Bacon: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the exceptional circumstances under which men are admitted to the fire services even if they do not reach the minimum standard of five feet seven inches in height and 37-39 inch chest.

Mr. Ede: The circumstances are the possession of exceptional qualifications likely to be of use to the Fire Service.

Miss Bacon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have been in communication

with his Department about a man who has spent six years in the Forces as a fire fighter, during four of which he was in charge of a fire fighting section on an R.A.F. station, that this man has been twice mentioned in dispatches for bravery as a fire fighter, but that he has been refused admission to the Fire Service because he is one inch below height and two inches below chest measurement, and that in the reply that I have received from the right hon. Gentleman's Department it is stated that only in exceptional circumstances is any relaxation allowed?

Mr. Ede: One has to bear in mind that in addition to the disqualifications mentioned, people by increasing age also become unsuitable for continued employment in the Fire Service, and it is exceedingly difficult to allow people to enter the Service, whose physical and other disabilities may make them a source of danger to comrades in the Service.

FIREARMS (SURRENDER)

Mr. Moyle: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now inform the House of the result of the appeal to members of the public to surrender firearms and ammunition.

Mr. Ede: Returns which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have obtained from Chief Officers of Police show that during the period from the 14th February, when we made our appeal, to the 31st March 75,996 weapons were surrendered in Great Britain, of which 1,580 were continuous fire weapons, 59,112 were pistols or revolvers, and 13,509 were rifles. In addition, 2,207,751 rounds of ammunition were surrendered, together with 5,873 shells, grenades and bombs.

CHANNEL ISLANDS (RECONSTRUCTION)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is being done towards the reparation of the Channel Islands since the German occupation; if the States of Jersey and the States of Guernsey, respectively, have accepted the capital sums offered to them by His Majesty's Government for their economic reconstruction on an austerity


basis; and what steps are being taken towards their permanent reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Mr. Ede: As this answer is necessarily long and detailed I will, with my hon. and learned Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Hughes: May I ask the Minister whether there is in operation a scheme of compensation for war damage in the Islands, and how it is financed?

Mr. Ede: I think an answer to that will be given in reply to the hon. and learned Gentleman's next Question.

Following is the answer:

I have recently been in the Islands, and from my personal observation can say that so much has been done that it is difficult to know what to select for mention. Wire, mines, and other relics of the German occupation have been widely removed; reconstruction of essential buildings has gone on; glasshouses have been repaired; hotels and boarding houses made ready for the reception of visitors; an intensive campaign launched against the Colorado beetle, which is such a menace to the potato crops in Jersey. The States of Jersey and of Guernsey have accepted, with warmly expressed gratitude, which was repeated to me personally at formal meetings of the States which I had the honor of attending and addressing, the assistance freely offered by His Majesty's Government in aid of the reduction of debt and of the economic reconstruction of the Islands.

With regard to permanent reconstruction and rehabilitation, I had opportunities in both Jersey and Guernsey of meeting all sorts and conditions of men and women engaged in different occupations, as well as administrators of the States and of the parishes. I had the privilege of attending, with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, a meeting of the municipality of St. Peter Port. Everywhere I found determination to overcome all obstacles to restoration, and, without any belittling of the heavy tasks ahead, an unfaltering belief in the social and economic advancement of the communities, whose individuals take pride in the fact that neither the blandishments nor the bullying of the invader could shake their loyalty to the Crown nor destroy their faith, in the ultimate victory of the British way of life with which they are proud to be identified.

Mr. Hector Huhges: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is being done to provide compensation to individuals who sustained loss by reason of the German occupation of the Channel Islands.

Mr. Ede: There is a scheme for repair and restoration of property lost or damaged in the Channel Islands during the German occupation. The scheme is not intended to provide compensation as such, but to assist in the restoration of the economic life of the Islands.

Mr. Hughes: What is being done to meet the hard cases of pensioners resident in the Islands who, during the German occupation, did not receive their pensions and had to borrow money from the banks at interest, and now have to repay the principal and interest?

Mr. Ede: That is a matter primarily for the Island authorities. I would not have thought it really arose out of the Question which the hon. and learned Gentleman put down, which, I assumed, related to material damage.

GERMANY (REQUISITIONING OF HOUSES)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will give instructions to the military government in Germany that, in the commandeering of German homes, every effort should be made to avoid taking those of anti-Nazis; and that where this is unavoidable, anti-Nazis should be allowed to retain their furniture and be given facilities for finding alternative accommodation before vacating their homes.

The Chancellor of the Duchy oil Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): As my hon.
Friend recognizes, it is not always possible to avoid requisitioning particular houses, but in all cases where tenants are disturbed steps are taken to ensure that alternative accommodation is made available. In the case of victims of Nazi persecution special arrangements are in force, giving preferential treatment not only in the provision of accommodation but also in such matters as rent and repairs.

DEMOBILISATION (STATISTICS)

Mr. James Callaghan: asked the Minister of Labour the numbers of men and women released from the Forces in April, 1946.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): Yes, Sir. I will, with permission, circulate a full statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The releases reported during

RELEASES AND DISCHARGES FROM THE FORCES AND AUXILIARY AND NURSING SERVICES


1. Cumulative figures 18th June, 1945, to 30th April, 1946.




MEN
WOMEN


Service
Programme
Releases and Discharges
Excess (+)or Deficit(-)on Programme
Programme
Releases and Discharges
Excess (+)or Deficit(-)on Programme


Royal Navy

399,000
409,750*
+
10,750
49,800
48,870*
-
930


Army
…
1,721,700
1,733,240
+
11,540
151,660
145,470
-
6,190


R.A.F
…
524,750
536,050
+
11,300
99,750
98,180
-
1,570


TOTAL
…
2,645,450
2,679,040
+
33,590
301,210
292,520
-
8,690


* These figures include an estimate of 20,500 men and 2,225 women whose release had been effected at 30th April, 1946, but not yet recorded at the Admiralty.

2.Analysis of Releases and Discharges 18th June, 1945, to 30th April, 1946.


Service
Class A
Class B
Other Releases and Discharges
Total





MEN


Royal Navy

…
362,180
15,080
32,490
409.750


Army
…
…
1,435,320
148,840
149,080
1,733,240


R.A.F.

…
453,450
47,590
35,010
536,050


TOTAL

…
2,250,950
211,510
216,580
2,679,040





WOMEN


Royal Navy

…
44,040
260
4,570
48,870


Army
…
…
128,160
2,380
14.930
145,470


R.A.F.

…
85,900
740
11,540
98,180


TOTAL

…
258,100
3,380
31,040
292,520





TOTAL—MEN AND WOMEN


Royal Navy

…
406,220
15,340
37,060
458,620


Army
…
…
1,563,480
151,220
164,010
1,878,710


R.A.F.

…
539,350
48,330
46,550
634,230


TOTAL

…
2.509,050
214,890*
247,620
2,971,560


* Individual specialist releases include 12,964 men and 402 women.

April amounted to 284,850. The total number of men and women released and discharged from 18th June, 1945, to the end of April, 1946, was 2,971,560.

Mr. Callaghan: Is that figure above or
below the target?

Mr. Isaacs: Without looking at the figures I could not answer.

Following is the statement:

3.Releases and Discharges reported during April, 1946.


Service
Class A
Class B
Other Releases and Discharges
Total





MEN


Royal Navy

…
50,860
3,050
1,140
55,050


Army
…
…
117,110
25,710
10,370
153,660


R.A.F.

…
47,970
4,130
1,560
53,660


TOTAL

…
215,940
32,890
13,070
261,900





WOMEN


Royal Navy

…
6,500
30
220
6,750


Array
…
…
8,910
90
280
9,280


R.A.F.

…
6,390
70
460
6,920


TOTAL

…
21,800
190
960
22,950





TOTAL—MEN AND WOMEN


Royal Navy

…
57,360
3,080
1,360
61,800


Army
…
…
126,020
25,800
10,650
162,470


R.A.F.

…
54,360
4,200
2,020
60,580


TOTAL

…
237,740
33,080
14,030
284,850

PRODUCTION CAMPAIGN (PROGRESS)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Prime Minister what improvements in production he can now report as the result of his recent campaign for increased production.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would refer the hon. Member to the Monthly Digest of Statistics, which shows encouraging, increases in production in a number of important industries. I may mention also that brick production has increased 80 per cent, since January, that the number of permanent houses building in Great Britain rose from less than 25,000 on 1st January to 66,000 on 1st April, and that exports in April were at a rate nearly 60 per cent, above December.

Mr. Erroll: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is considerable room for a great deal of further improvement?

Mr. Morrison: There is always room for further improvement in all parts of the House.

Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a catastrophic fall in engineering production as a result of the policy being put forward by His Majesty's Government in regard to manpower?

Mr. Morrison: I could not accept that.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there would be considerable improvement in production if junior Ministers in the administration were to issue fewer threats to the public?

Mr. Speaker: This is the sort of Question which always leads to an unusual number of supplementary questions.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Domestic Service (Aliens)

Captain Mars den: asked the Minister of Labor what steps he has taken to ensure that the usual customs and conditions of domestic service in this country are fully explained to domestic servants on the Continent wishing for employment in Great Britain.

Mr. Isaacs: Particulars of the terms and conditions of domestic employment in hospitals are communicated to the authorities in foreign countries which have agreed to cooperate in bringing opportunities of such employment to the notice of their nationals. Engagements of foreigners for employment in private domestic service in this country for which permission is granted by my Department are made direct by prospective employers, and it is for them to give any necessary explanations of the kind suggested.

Lieut -Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Is it a fact that the employer in this country must pay the full cost of the return of the employee abroad in case at any time, without any real reason, that employee wishes to return to a foreign country?

Mr. Isaacs: Without giving a categorical reply, I should say it was reasonable to assume that the persons who take responsibility for bringing them here ought to take responsibility for taking them out.

Aberdeen

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour how many persons male and female, respectively, are now un employed in the city of Aberdeen; and what steps he proposes to take, in collaboration with other Ministers, to have these unemployed persons absorbed into productive industries.

Mr. Isaacs: At 8th April, 1946, the latest date for which figures are at present available, the number of unemployed insured persons aged 14 years and over suitable for ordinary employment on the registers of Aberdeen Employment Exchange, was 1,916, representing three per cent. of the numbers insured, of whom 1,638 were males and 278 were females. As to the last part of the Question, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will, in pursuance of the Government's general policy, endeavour to encourage industry in that district with a view to the absorption of the unemployed persons.

Professions (Training)

Mr. K. Lindsay: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has made any
recent survey of the professional needs of the country; whether such information
is in the hands of University Appointments Boards and the University Grants

Committee; and whether he will make it available to men and women still in the Services so that they may be given guidance in choosing future careers.

Mr. Isaacs: An extensive survey of the professional needs of the country was made by the Hankey Committee on Further Education and Training in 1943–44. The resulting information about training facilities and prospects in the various professions has been made generally available in the handbook and pamphlets in the "Careers for Men and Women" series. These are issued free on demand to serving men and women in H.M. Forces, and are also obtainable from all the offices of the Ministry of Labour and National Service. I cannot say what information is in the hands of University Appointments Boards, but I am informed that the University Grants Committee does not possess comprehensive information of this character.

Mr. Lindsay: The answer the right hon. Gentleman has given is not the answer I want. I have seen a number of these reports this morning in an Army camp. The pamphlets are beautiful. All I want to know is, what are the relative needs of these professions? The men are anxious to know what chances they have, having regard to the voluminous reports of the Teviot Committee, the Good enough Committee, and so on. That is the question to which I would like an answer.

Mr. Isaacs: The hon. Gentleman says that is not the answer he wanted. I had to fathom out in my mind what his Question really applied for. In the light of his supplementary question I will look into it.

Essential Work Orders (Withdrawals)

Mr. Stubbs: asked the Minister of Labour what progress is being made in the release of industries from the Essential Work Orders.

Mr. Isaacs: On or about the 4th May some 20,000 undertakings in the engineering and motor vehicle repair shops and garages industries ceased to be scheduled under the Orders. On or about the 15th May some 30,000 undertakings in a wide range of industries ceased to be scheduled together with a thousand undertakings which were scheduled as "special cases." It is estimated that about five and a


quarter million workers once covered by the Orders have now been withdrawn from their scope. Notice has been given to 27 other industries that they will be withdrawn from the Orders on various dates up to early August. The industries which remain covered by the Orders will be withdrawn as opportunity offers, and preliminary warning has, in fact, already been given to the cotton spinning, railway and shipbuilding and ship repairing, including barge building, trawler fishing, and ball clay industries. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT lists of the industries referred to in this reply.

Mr. Stubbs: How many of the industries released have come to voluntary agreements, and how many, if any, have refused to come to agreements?

Mr. Isaacs: Without notice I could not go into details, but I can say that in a great number of industries negotiations are proceeding on that basis, and that in a great number of them satisfactory results have been secured by agreement between both sides.

Following are the lists:

ESSENTIAL WORK ORDERS

Industries which ceased to be scheduled by about mid-May

Abrasives.
Aluminium (basic secondary and alloy smelting).
Animal gut cleaning (England and Wales only).
Book-binding (library re-binding section only).
Boot and shoe manufacture (including component parts).
Canal and Canal carrying undertakings.
Canvas hose.
Carbons for A.A. Searchlights.
Catering services of local authorities
Cemetery services.
Chain manufacture
China clay.
Clothing wholesale.
Coal distributive trade.
Coir matting and yarn.
Coke ovens.
Cold stores (controlled).
Constructional engineering.
Cooperage.
Corn and agricultural merchants (licensed).
Cotton and rayon weaving.
Cotton and rayon textile finishing
Cut sole.
Dock and Harbour undertakings.
Drug trade, wholesale.
Electrical cables.
Electrical contracting.
Electricity supply.
Engineering (including radio batteries and accumulators).
Fat melting and bone degreasing.
Fellmongering.

Fibreboard packing case manufacturers
Film stripping. 
Flax processing.
Flower pot manufacture.
Food (Buffer) Depots.
Food canning.
Gas supply.
Glucose, invert and brewing sugar.
Hazel rod fenders.
Heating, ventilating and domestic engineering (including installation).
Hide and skin market trade.
Highways departments of local authorities.
Horse haulage
Hosiery
Iron and steel production
Iron and steel stockholders.
Jam manufacture
Jute.
Jute bag (new).
Jute bag (Second-hand).
Laboratory porcelain.
Lamp-black.
Laundries.
Lead production.
Leather belting.
Leather scrap.
Light alloys (wrought and foundry)
Linen thread.
Magnesium (basic).
Matches.
Metal Keg and drum reconditioning.
Motor vehicle repair shops and garages.
arrow fabrics.
Needle, hosiery needle and fish book manufacture.
Netting, sandfly and mosquito.
Non-ferrous metals (brass, copper bronze wrought work).
Oatmeal and pearl barley milling.
Ochre and earth colours mining and grinding.
Optical manufacture.
Paint and varnish manufacture.
Paper Bag.
Paper box.
Pencil manufacture
Petroleum (refining storage and wholesale distribution (excluding lubricating oil)
Plastics, moulding and fabricating.
Potato drying.
Potters' Millers.
Pottery.
Printing.
Public cleansing (including refuse and salvage collection and disposal).
Rayon manufacture.
Research Associations
Road Haulage, goods.
Road transport, passenger.
Rope and cordage.
R.O.Fs. and similar establishments.
Rubber and rubber products (but not rubberised clothing and textiles).
Saddle and harness making.
Seed trade.
Sewerage and sewage disposal.
Sheet metal work.
Silk noil spinning.
Silkweaving throwing spinning and finishing-Slaughtering.
Soap manufacture and fat splitting
Surgical boot and appliances manufacture.
Surgical dressing manufacture (including sanitary towels).


Textile paper tube making.
Tropical helmet manufacture.
Waste reclamation.
Water supply.
Wool (including woolcombing but excluding dyeing and finishing).
Woollen and worsted dyeing and finishing (England and Wales only).

*This does not include the Port Transport Industry.

Industries which have received three months' notice to terminate between 15th May, 1946, and yd August, 1946, and approximate date of withdrawal.

Asphalt manufacture; 1st August.

Ballast Sand and gravel (production delivery, maintenance of pits): 1st August.

Beet Sugar manufacture: 5th July.

Boatbuilding Section of Shipbuilding and Ship-repairing industry: 15th June.
Bread Making and Flour Confectionery (except a limited number of undertakings): 3rd August.

Cast stone and cast concrete products: 1st August.

Chalk, chalk lime (but excluding whiting): 1st August.

Chemicals, except a limited number of firms engaged in the manufacture of heavy chemicals or fertilisers: 29th June.

Compound cooking fat: 3rd August.

Concrete, ready mixed: 1st August.

Margarine manufacture: 3rd August.

Milk distribution and processing (including cheese processing) (except a limited number of undertakings): 3rd August.

Paper and paper board: nth July.

Provender and compound food manufacture (except a limited number of undertakings): 3rd August.

Putty: 1st August.

Quarrying (slag, igneous rock and sandstone, but excluding limestone and roofing slate): 3rd August.

Refractories (including getting the materials): 1st August.

Roofing felt manufacture: 1st August.

Seed crushing and oil refining: 3rd August.

Stoneware: 27th June.

Sugar refining: 3rd August.

Timber home produced (recovery, conversion and storage): 27th June.

Timber imported (sawmills): 27th June.

Timber (inland storage): 27th June.

Utility furniture manufacture: 3rd July.

Wholesale provisions and grocery trade (England and Wales) (except a limited number of undertakings): 3rd August.

Woodworking: 3rd July.

Industries not yet given the three months' formal notice that they are to be withdrawn from the scope of the Orders.

Agricultural Executive Committees.
Agriculture (Scotland).
Asbestos cement. Ball clay.
Brickmaking, including getting the clay.
Building and Civil Engineering.
Catchment and internal drainage.
Cement.
Coalmining.
Cotton spinning, including waste spinning and doubling mills (nucleus firms).

Dock Labour.
Flour Milling.
Glass (excluding flat glass and domestic glassware).
Gypsum and plaster board.
Leather production.
Merchant Navy.
Quarrying (limestone, roofing slate).
Railways.
Sanitary drain pipe manufacture.
Sanitary earthenware.
Sanitary fireclay.
Scottish shale oil.
Shipbuilding and ship-repairing, including bargebuilding (but excluding boatbuilding).
Trawler Fishing.
Whiting.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE

Apprentices

Captain Marsden: asked the Minister of Labour whether all indentured apprentices may now be granted deferment from military service until they have reached the age of 20.

Mr. Isaacs: This question is at present under consideration.

Government Policy

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Minister of Labour if he is in a position to make a statement on the future of the National Service Acts.

Mr. Isaacs: If my hon. Friend will repeat his Question today week, I hope to be in a position to make a statement.

Discharged Men

Mr. Hale: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that Mr. George E. Colson, who volunteered in November, 1943, for flying duty with the Fleet Air Arm, after obtaining his intermediate B.Sc. and was discharged unfit in December, 1945, and who is now studying for his final B.Sc. with a view to entering the teaching profession, has been informed that he will be called up for further service before he can complete his training; and whether he will take steps to ensure that this man is allowed to complete his training.

Mr. Isaacs: Since I wrote to my hon. Friend on 4th May about the case to which he refers it has been decided to reconsider the general question of calling up for further service men who have been discharged from the Armed Forces. I will write to my hon. Friend again or make an announcement as soon as a decision is reached.

Mine Ballotees

Mr. King: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that, whilst a boy directed to the mines cannot volunteer for service in the Armed Forces, he may be directed into the Armed Forces if his conduct is unsatisfactory; and, in view of the fact that this places a premium on misbehavior, as it is the only way in which a boy can get what he wants, if he will amend this arrangement.

Mr. Isaacs: I am fully aware of the desires and difficulties of young men directed to mining employment, but I deprecate any suggestion that a premium is being placed on misbehavior. The great majority of the young men have honored their national service obligations by working in, the mines, and I regret that they cannot be allowed to join the Forces.

Mr. King: Does the Minister think that reasonable? Is he aware that boys can get into the Army now only by deliberately misbehaving in the mines? However good these boys may be— and they are— is this not imposing an impossible burden upon them?

Mr. Isaacs: That is exactly the point in the Question to which my answer is directed.

Deferment (Qualifications)

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the Minister of Labor what industrial qualifications are demanded of men between 19 and 30 years of age who were in reserved occupations during the war and are now continuing to claim exemption from military service.

Mr. Isaacs: Apart from some special cases, for example, coal mining and agriculture, from which, in general, no men are called up, deferment is granted by district man power boards on the ground of the importance to the national effort of the work on which individual workers are engaged.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the terms and conditions for continued engagement in industry are so widely drawn that he has altogether failed to call up for military service between 70 per cent. and 90 per cent, of the young men previously in reserved occupations during the war?

Mr. Isaacs: If the Noble Lord will be kind enough to let us know where we can find them we will comb them out straight away

UNIVERSITIES (WOMEN)

Mr. Weitzman: asked the Minister of Labor whether, having regard to the recent limitations imposed on normal women entrants for universities in the year commencing September, 1946, he will take steps to see that those women denied admission as a result of such limitation are given preferential treatment for admission in the year commencing September, 1947.

Mr. Isaacs: It is too early to say what arrangements the universities may be able to make for the admission of women students in the autumn of 1947, but J will keep in mind the point raised by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Wilson Harris: asked the Minister of Labor whether, in view of the restrictions imposed by the new university entry conditions on girls leaving school and desiring to enter a university in October, 1946, he will arrange that 10 per cent. of the places available in mixed universities and colleges shall be shared equitably between men and women.

Mr. Weitzman: asked the Minister of Labor whether he is satisfied that in the arrangements made by him with regard to the university students no discrimination is exercised between men and women seeking to enter a university.

Mr. Isaacs: The admission of women to the universities is a matter for the university authorities. My suggestion to them has been that men and women in the priority classes should be treated equally. With regard to girls leaving school, I asked that if their admission would result in excluding men in the priority classes they should not be admitted except where they are students of exceptional promise. I feel this to be an equitable arrangement.

Mr. Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognize that this means that very few girls indeed leaving school this: term will obtain entry to the universities; and, having regard to the fact that ex-Service-men, very rightly, get the very high allocation of 90 per cent. of the places, will he not ask the universities, as he


did before, that the number which is given to boys leaving school should be given inequal degree to girls leaving school at the end of this term?

Mr. Isaacs: I have taken this matter up with the authorities. However, in the light of what the hon. Gentleman says I will make another effort.

Mrs. Castle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in view of the fact that the Government are asking women to play a specially important part in the reconstruction work of this country, there will be very strong resentment at any suggestion that they should take a back place in the queue for university training?

Mr. Isaacs: In the light of modern conditions I cannot visualise women taking a back place.

SPINNING EXPERIMENTS, WYE MILL, SHAW

Mr. Erroll: asked the Minister of Labour whether members of the staff of his Department and trade union officials are consulted in connection with the Board of Trade's experimental spinning processes at the Wye mill; and to what extent the continuance of the experiments depends on their agreement that they shall continue

Mr. Isaacs: The investigations and experiments at Wye No. 2 Mill at Shaw are conducted under the auspices of the Cotton Board and not of the Board of Trade. The experiments are supervised by a committee representing employers' and workers' organisations, and the continuance of the experiments, naturally, depends on the harmonious cooperation of the two sides of the industry.

Mr. Erroll: Is it not a fact that one reactionary trade union official, by his obstructive tactics, has stopped all experimental work at this mill?

Mr. Isaacs: No That is not the proper construction to put on the negotiations proceeding on this experimental work.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that no experimental work took place at this mill, which is in my constituency, owing to the actions of the trade unions which refused absolutely to cooperate? No experimental work has been started.

Mr. Isaacs: I have indicated that there was some difficulty in the beginning. The unions wanted some understanding and guarantee about what was happening. But at the moment the thing is working harmoniously, and I hope that no word will be said to disturb the very harmonious working of this project.

Mr. Erroll: asked the President of the Board of Trade how many cotton operatives are at present retained at the Wye Mill in connection with his Department's experimental spinning processes; and what work they were engaged on during each of the last four weeks.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am informed by the management of the Wye Mill that the number of persons at work at the mill during the last four weeks was 405. These persons are engaged on all the normal processes of cotton spinning. The experiments being carried out at the mill under the auspices of the Cotton Board entail rearrangement of machinery and of machine staffing, rather than radical changes in the nature of the processes carried out

Mr. Erroll: In view of the fact that most people are very anxious to see this experiment continued and brought to a successful conclusion, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that none of the staff will be withdrawn until the experiment is completed?

Mr. Morrison: I will certainly see that that point is considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Tax Offices (Staff)

Mr. Shurmer: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that there is considerable delay in making refunds of Income Tax for newly born children; whether the delay arises owing to legal or administrative difficulties; and if it is possible for these refunds to be made more promptly.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): The difficulty is the great pressure of work and shortage of staff in Tax Offices, and I am now considering what can be done to cut down the work and provide more staff. If my hon. Friend would let me have particulars of any cases of delay, I will gladly look into them

Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how far the shortage of staff in tax offices is due to the conditions which exist? [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] Can he tell us when he will put these right?

Mr. Dalton: We advance gradually from point to point. At the moment the chief difficulty is not that'. The chief difficulty is the pressure of work in these tax offices. A Question, I believe, is down on the Order Paper for me to answer next week, when I hope I shall be able to make a statement on what I can do in that regard.

Accumulated Sterling Balances

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any statement to make with reference to the disclosure by the Secretary of the United States Treasury, in the course of his evidence before the Banking and Currency Committee of the House of Representatives on 20th May, of the terms on which His Majesty's Government will settle the blocked sterling balances.

Mr. Dalton: The undertaking of His Majesty's Government with regard to the accumulated sterling balances is set out in Article 10 of the Financial Agreement dated 6th December, 1945 (Cmd. 6708).

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Does that mean that the figures given by Mr. Vinson before the Banking and Currency Committee are accurate?

Mr. Dalton: The commitment into which His Majesty's Government have entered is set out with great clarity in Article 10, and was explained, I hope reasonably clearly, in the speech which I made in this House when recommending the House to approve the Anglo-American Agreement. It will be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 417, c. 430 I have no reason to think that the United States Administration differs from His Majesty's Government in the interpretation which we both place on this provision.

Mr. Boothby: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance that there was no secret understanding or private understanding arrived at between His Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States, in addi-

tion to the agreement set out in the White Paper?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. The commitment into which we have entered is set out in Article 10. Over and above that, there is no secret agreement at all. But, naturally, during the long discussions that have taken place between the two Governments, discussions have proceeded. But it is perfectly clear, and I repeat this—and I hope that the hon. Gentleman's antipathy to the loan agreement will not lead him to doubt this statement—that our commitment is as set out here. It is that and no other.

Mr. Norman Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any truth in the report of what Mr. Vinson is alleged to have said?

Mr. Dalton: It is not my business to check up on the accuracy of Press reports.

ARMY LIEUTENANTS (RETIRED PAY)

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: asked the Minister of Pensions why no adjustment has been made in the standard rate of retired pay applicable to lieutenants disabled in the 1914–18 war.

The Parliamentary Secretary Jo the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Blenkinsop): As the standard rate of retired pay is the same as that for lieutenants disabled in the 1939 war. no adjustment is necessary.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether it is not a fact that this unfortunate category of officers is the only one that has not had the disability pension increased? Is that not an unfair discrimination against them?

Mr. Blenkinsop: No, Sir. The increases in pensions that were payable to other ranks will show that the officers are considerably better off, and in view of this the Government's view is that no increase in the standard rates for officers is called for.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: The hon. Gentleman has not answered the supplementary question. Can he answer it categorically?

Captain Blenkinsop: The answer is: No, Sir.

IRELAND (TRAVEL IDENTITY CARDS)

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the delay that takes place at the travel permit office, Bothwell Street, Glasgow, in the issue of permits to people who wish to travel to Ireland; and what steps he is taking to clear up the confused condition of this office.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. McNeil): The heavy demand for passports for overseas travel, as well as for travel identity cards for journeys to Ireland, has resulted in serious congestion at the branch passport office at Glasgow. Extra staff has however been engaged and additional accommodation has now been secured. A separate office has been opened to deal exclusively with travel identity cards for Ireland, and it is hoped that this measure will prove effective in relieving congestion.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Does the Under-Secretary realise that people are having to wait for four or five weeks to obtain permits for Ireland? Will he take steps to speed up this matter?

Mr. McNeil: I realise that there is considerable congestion, since I was there myself last Saturday morning.

Sir Ronald Ross: Does the Under-Secretary realise that the trouble is by no means confined to the Glasgow office, and that there are unconscionable delays at all other offices in providing identity documents, which is a matter of complaint to intending travellers and to the tourist trade?

Mr. McNeil: I can hardly agree that there has been an unconscionable delay. I agree that there has been congestion, but we hope to tackle it as fast as we can obtain the staff and premises.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is the Under-Secretary aware that only two weeks ago I received a letter from his Department, stating that the minimum delay for passports was two weeks? How does that tie up with his reply?

Mr. McNeil: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member will read the Question, which refers to travel identity documents.

WORLD FOOD SITUATION (MINISTER'S MISSION TO AMERICA)

Mr. Churchill (by Private Notice): asked the Lord President of the Council whether he has any statement to make on his recent Mission to the Government of the United States and to His Majesty's Government in Canada in relation to the world food situation.

Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir. I am glad to take this early opportunity of reporting to the House on my Mission to the United States and Canada.
In view of the gravity of the world food situation, the Government considered that special inter-Governmental talks at a high level were necessary through the United Kingdom, United States and Canadian Governments, that is, the three Governments to whom the Combined Food Board reports. On our initiative, the United States and Canadian Governments have now discussed with us, at a high level, the most urgent elements in the world food and agriculture problem with particular reference to wheat, and the measures which they and we are adopting to meet the menace.
There has been a temptation to say that a matter like agriculture is the exclusive concern of each nation, but the facts are demolishing this attitude. I told the President, and I told His Majesty's Government in Canada, that there was no aspect of British food and agriculture with any bearing on the prevention of famine which I was not willing to discuss with a view to their making criticisms and suggestions. I made it no less clear that I counted on them to take the same attitude. Both Governments showed themselves fully aware of this need for raising the fight against famine not only to the highest level of priority, but also to a plane above all petty considerations of national pride. I wanted to find out whether we were supposed to be dealing with famine on the basis of each nation contributing to the full extent of its ability, whatever inconveniences and even hardships might have to be faced in the process. I had the clearest assurances from both the United States and Canadian Governments that they were resolved to work with us on that footing.
In these circumstances my colleagues in the Government and I felt, as I am


sure the House will feel, that Britain could neither stand aside, nor be asked to bear an unwarrantable burden or to make disproportionate sacrifices. I laid detailed evidence before the United States Government to show that we in Britain have, in proportion to our resources, given the world a lead in this matter. Our agricultural community is in all the circumstances doing wonders both in production and in loyal observance of measures for the maximum production of food from farms. The British consumer also has accepted more austerity for more years and has played the game better in the fair working of a fair rationing scheme than any other body of consumers. A summary of our various measures in this field was included in the announcement which was issued in Washington on the 17th May, and which will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT for the convenience of hon. Members.
In a starving world we cannot defend to ourselves—quite apart from what other nations might think—any policy except aid to the utmost extent of our ability. That is and has been our policy, and I was very glad to find a deep conviction of this, not only in Canada, but in the United States. Our present and past sacrifices have hurt, but they have certainly given us a remarkable degree of moral leadership in this matter among the nations of the world.
The immediate occasion of my Mission to Washington was the emergence of some disturbing misunderstandings regarding responsibility for, and ability to supply, India—to meet whose urgent needs the Government are most anxious to do everything possible—and the British Zone of Germany. Shipments to these areas from the United States were falling to a very low level. We were confronted with seeing them starve, with all the political, economic and military consequences, or with trying to keep them alive by diversions from our own meagre resources, as we have already had to do, or with finding some basis on which the United States Government could accept responsibility for these areas to the same extent as for any other.
Clearly there was no tolerable alternative to the third of these courses, and it is that course which will now be followed. The United States Government have now felt able to associate themselves unreservedly with the task of supplying

India and the British Zone of Germany to the full extent that available resources allow and they have instructed their representatives on the Combined Food Board accordingly. So far as Germany is concerned they have accepted the proposition that there should not be a starving or a more under-fed British zone in Germany side by side with an American zone which is getting assured food supplies, but that both zones shall work to the same standard of rationing and shall have the same degree of assurance that their supplies will not suddenly come to an end.
In order to secure this very valuable assistance to these two areas, it was essential to put the United States Government in a position to defend the United Kingdom programme without reservation, as being one which contained no element out of which relief for Germany and India could reasonably be expected. It was widely felt in the United States that since V.E. Day we had continued to maintain stocks at an unnecessarily high level, and that in view of the imminent world famine threat and the fact that most other nations claim to be getting along on no more than three or four weeks' supply, we should make some contribution, not from cutting our consumption but by economising the amount of wheat locked up in that long pipe-line which stretches from tie prairies, through the Great Lakes to the ports, mills, bakeries and finally stomachs in the United Kingdom.
I explained to the United States Government with the utmost force and in detail why we feel that the exceptional effort now being made by the British people to carry out their commitments for winning the peace cannot be assured without approximately the quantity of wheat which is now moving through the pipe-line. I did not feel that in spite of having gone so far earlier, the British people would wish to be represented as the only ones who were making no abatement of any sort in their current demands on the Combined Food Board, in view of the vast gap of nearly three-quarters of a million tons monthly between the screened demands for bread grains during the period from May to September and the world supplies in sight for the same period.
Therefore, with the authority of the Government, I most reluctantly agreed to


reduce our import claims during the period up to September by 200,000 tons as an outright sacrifice without any condition of replacement. The House will appreciate that our forward import programme includes a certain amount of wheat and flour which is already owned by the Ministry of Food and is in transit here, a further quantity which is definitely earmarked for the United Kingdom but is not yet physically in our possession, and a residue which is claimed for our programme, but has neither been acquired nor has been earmarked by the Combined Food Board. It is from the last category that the cut of 200,000 tons has been made. We have not, in fact, given up a single ton which was either here or on the way here, or either owned by or allocated to the United Kingdom. What we have done is to reduce that part of our claims which was outstanding and not covered by supplies already acquired or earmarked.
This is, nevertheless, a most hazardous step to take, but the whole world food situation is hazardous, and moreover our own hazard as an importing country might well have been increased rather than diminished in the long run by assuming a rigidly negative attitude on this critical occasion. In such an emergency it seems not unreasonable that we might expect to make an economy of this limited proportion by emergency measures of the kind which had to be adopted in blitz conditions when the dangers to the United Nations on the food front were certainly no greater than they are now. I can make no promises of any sort: all I can say is that if further economies and sacrifices prove necessary it will not be for want of the utmost possible administrative ingenuity and effort to avoid them.
Regrettable as this cut in our import programme is, it forms, as I have shown, part of an agreement whose benefits promise to be substantial. The United States Government have, moreover, agreed that the criticism that has been run in America against the levels of United Kingdom stocks will now be regarded by the Administration as definitely and finally met by the sacrifice which we have made. Our decisions—which are, I am sure, right in themselves—depended for their adoption on the mutual confidence that there was no holding back in sacrifices on either side. It is very difficult

and probably unprofitable to try to measure the efforts of one country against another, but I would say that the Americans are now most thoroughly aware of the importance of diverting food to Europe and are making diversions which, at least in some cases, are upsetting their own system of distribution and are instrumental in closing some of their flour mills.
What is even more important, they have now changed the price ratio in order that farmers may find it more profitable to sell grain as human food rather than to feed it to livestock. As the President said to me, "When something must be done we usually do it." We recall with admiration how magnificently the American people delivered the goods during the war, and it would really be most unfair to assume that these measures which are now being applied with so much energy throughout the United States will not in due course give the results which the United States Government are determined to achieve.
His Majesty's Government in Canada readily associated themselves with the general lines of the conclusions reached in Washington, at which in fact their own Ambassador had been present. A joint announcement to this effect was issued in Ottawa on 20th May and will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. Canada is, of course, not only a huge exporter of wheat and other foods, but is very export-minded. On grounds both of interest and of sentiment, she desires above all to export the utmost possible to the United Kingdom, while the nature of the Canadian administration and control over wheat makes the problem of ways and means less difficult than it is in the United States. I cannot speak too highly of the encouragement which we are receiving from Canada. Their cordiality and affection for this country and the spirit in which they are facing political difficulties in order to deliver the wheat are wonderful. I was particularly glad to meet Mr. James Gardiner, the Dominion Minister of Agriculture, and to be personally convinced that we are moving abreast in these matters.
In conclusion I would say that if my talks with the United States and Canadian Governments are any guide, we are now on the way to creating the same type of spirit and urgency about food for winning


the peace which we created for resources for winning the war. It is becoming more and more obvious that the world must, by concerted measures and sacrifices, get on top of famine if famine is not very shortly to get on top of the world. In such a situation the world looks to all producing countries to do their utmost to implement all measures which, in their particular circumstances, are calculated to make available the greatest supply of bread grains. It looks to all receiving countries to see to it that the supplies are soundly distributed and to take vigorous steps to smash the black market. And only if both the producing and the receiving countries respond will the crisis be overcome and the world be able to turn to more constructive and congenial tasks.
I trust that the statement I have just made will have convinced the House as to the wisdom of the course the Government have taken, but if this is not the case the Government will be happy to discuss through the usual channels arrangements for a Debate on the subject next week.
Mr. Churchill: I should like to ask the Lord President whether he can give us any idea now of the precise amount in tonnage of American wheat which will be diverted to the British zone in Germany, or, at any rate, to India?

Mr. Morrison: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not press me on that point; it would not be convenient. These decisions are decisions of the Governments concerned, and are in the form of a decision to instruct their representatives on the Combined Food Board. The Combined Food Board has to decide, and, in the course of its discussions, will have to take into account the claims of many nations. I think that it would complicate the task of the Combined Food Board, and it might be embarrassing to our interests, if I were to divulge these figures, at this stage.

Mr. Churchill: No difficulty appears to attach to divulging the figure of 200,000 tons, which, we are to sacrifice. Naturally, we should like something more than this very vague statement, as to the results we are to achieve by this new sacrifice, and, as the right hon. Gentleman, I believe, has himself described it, "very great gamble." Can we have nothing more precise than the vague words which he has used?

Mr. Morrison: I can only say that the German figure will, of course, be a substantial one. It must be so. In the case of India, I will say this: The allotments which the United States and Canadian Governments have agreed to support will secure to India shipments in 1946 at a very much higher rate than in any previous year, despite the acute world shortage of all cereals. I do not think that I ought to go further than that, otherwise it will complicate the further discussion which must take place in connection with the work of the Combined Food Board.

Mr. Churchill: I will not press the right hon. Gentleman further, at the moment, but I must register the unsatisfactory position whereby very heavy and precise sacrifices are made by us, and we are given nothing but the rigmarole which the right hon. Gentleman was able to read out just now—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw" "Play the game "]— nothing but the rigmarole, which he was pleased to read out just now—I apply that to the particular phrase which he used in giving us a little more information—and if anyone can see any meaning in it, from beginning to end, I shall be most interested. It was given in that officialese which is not meant to give any information at all, but to provide a certain pabulum of words. We shall, naturally, not attempt to form any opinion on the statement which has just been made, at this moment. We should like to have a little time to consider it, and perhaps an announcement can be made on Monday, after discussions have taken place through the usual channels, as to whether a Debate should be arranged on the subject or not.

Mr. Morrison: Certainly discussions can go on through the usual channels and I hope we shall be able to say something on Monday. On the other points raised by the right hon. Gentleman in his supplementary question, I can assure the House that the only reason I am backward in giving the specific information asked for is in the interests of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth and Empire. I have no other interests in that matter at all. As to the other observations made by the right hon. Gentleman, if I may say so, they were in accordance with the recent tendency of the right hon.


Gentleman to make party politics out of matters where party politics are perhaps not altogether appropriate.

Mr. Churchill: I might feel some dismay at this censure if I valued the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman.

Sir Arthur Salter: Can the Minister say whether we may take it that immediately from now onwards the rations in the American and British zones in Germany will be the same and equally assured?

Mr. Morrison: I am not going to commit myself about "Immediately from now onwards."It would be for the two Governments to decide. We would proceed to make arrangements whereby the rations would be on equal principles in American and British occupied Germany, and the food situation treated on a similar principle, but it is quite clear that preparations and organisation have to be made to that end, and the commanders-in-chief in the two zones have been instructed to make the necessary arrangements. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman ought to try to tie me down to what is likely now and immediately.

Mr. Stokes: Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I believe the majority of the House and of the people in the country would wish to congratulate the Lord President on the contribution which he has made towards the starving people of Europe—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] Arising out of that, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the country is behind him in this, and whether he can now give some indication as to what further contributions could be made if, for instance, the people were asked to accept the rationing of bread?

Mr. Morrison: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. [Interruption.] Why should I not be? With regard to the rationing of bread, I can only say that that would be a matter for answer by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food. [HON. MEMBERS "Where is he? "] It would not, I think, be appropriate for me to make any statement on that point.

Sir Ralph Glyn: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned other zones, and I should like to ask if France was brought into these discussions. Will the French zone be treated similarly to the other zones?

Mr. Morrison: I was speaking for the United Kingdom Government and for the United States Government, but it is understood that the French zone will be treated on similar principles.

Mr. Clement Davies: Might I ask the Leader of the House if we will have an opportunity of discussing this question early next week if possible? While I am speaking, might I say that I dissociate myself from the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition in regard to the Leader of the House? The right hon. Gentleman had a very difficult task, and it seems to me that he has performed his task exceedingly well.

Mr. Morrison: I am very much obliged to my hon. and learned Friend, and if I may say so, I prefer his spirit to that of the Leader of the Opposition. I am doubtful whether it will be possible to arrange a Debate for the early part of next week, but we will do the best we can if the Debate is desired. I am not sure, because it is a matter for consideration whether the Debate is generally desired, and whether it would be useful, but we shall be most happy to discuss the matter amicably through the usual channels.

Following are the announcements:

WASHINGTON PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT, 17TH MAY, 1946

British and American officials announced jointly today that they had reached agreement on guiding principles which their two Governments should adopt in their common effort to solve the many immediate and longer range problems arising in connection with the world food crisis.

The announcement was made on the departure of Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., Lord President of the Council, who had flown from London early this week to discuss the wheat crisis with President Truman and other high officials of the United States Government, including Mr. Anderson, the Secretary of Agriculture, and Mr. Clayton, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. Mr. L. B. Pearson, Canadian Ambassador in Washington, and other Canadian officials were also present at the Conferences. Mr. Herbert Morrison is now proceeding to Ottawa where he will discuss with the Canadian Government the matters discussed in Washington, and other food problems.

The object of Mr. Morrison's visit to Washington was to review the efforts which the two Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States have been making to combat world famine, to agree on general lines of future policy and to solve certain immediate problems of common concern.

The two Governments are agreed that even more energetic measures are needed throughout the world to secure effective and complete removal of all threat to world famine and that their plans in this respect must be based on the assumption that this threat will continue at least through the summer harvest of 1947. The two Governments are further agreed to consult together in the future as in the past on the initiation or removal of any measures of major importance undertaken by them as a contribution to the world effort to prevent famine. The two Governments have reviewed the requirements and availabilities of bread grains for the. period May-September, 1946. The maximum supplies presently in sight for this period amount to only 10,000,000 tons. The total stated requirements for this period were 13.4 million tons. There is an indicated deficiency, therefore, of 3.4 million tons or about 25 per cent.

This deficiency makes it inevitable that severe cuts should be made in requirements as previously stated. Recommendations to this end will be submitted to the Combined Food Board by the two Governments. In preparing these recommendations the two Governments have made regard to the extent to which the forthcoming new crops can be mobilised with sufficient speed to relieve the worst of the strain. Even after severe cuts there would be a gap of something under one million tons between such requirements and available supplies. It will have to be recognised that the cuts proposed in the recommendations must inevitably cause hardship and a risk of famine remains. This risk can be reduced in so far as other sources of supply can be found in addition to those at present in sight and the two Governments are resolved to do everything in their power to secure these additional supplies.

The United Kingdom representatives have reported fully on the measures of consumer rationing and other economies currently in effect in the United Kingdom which may be briefly summarised as follows:

Consumer rationing has been continued and in the case of fats, bacon, dried eggs, meat and preserves, rations have been reduced below the austere low wartime levels. Rations of the British forces in the United Kingdom have twice been cut since V.E. Day.

Since the beginning of 1946 the following measures have been introduced:

(a) Increase in the extraction rate of flour:

(1) From 80 per cent. to 82½ per cent. on 24th February;
(2) From 82½ per cent. to 85 per cent. on 10th March;
(3) From 85 per cent.to 90 per cent. during the most critical period May-September.
(b) Reduction in supplies of grain for spirit distilling from 300,000 tons to 130,000 tons.
(c) Reduction in the size of the standard loaf from lb. to 1¾ lb.
(d) Reduction of 25 per cent.in production of biscuits and similar products.

(e) Reduction of production of cake and flour confectionery by reduction of 25 per cent. in allocations of sugar and fats for this purpose.
(f) Reduction of beer production to 90 per cent. of prewar production in terms of standard barrels.
(g) Inauguration of a campaign to secure a reduction in wastage of food.

In order to increase the output of bread grains the United Kingdom has continued its wartime policy of land utilisation, crop production and disposal with the effect of encouraging cereal production at the expense of livestock. The feeding of millable wheat to livestock continues to be prohibited.

The following measures have been introduced since the beginning of 1946:
(1) Payment of a grant of £2 per acre in respect of the ploughing up for the 1946 harvest of grassland which has been down for three years or longer.
(2) Increase of is. 9d. per cwt. in price of wheat from the 1947 harvest.
(3) Reintroduction of directions to grow wheat for 1947 harvest in order to secure a minimum target of 2.5 million acres. This means return to the position prevailing up to and including the 1945 harvest. Directions to grow potatoes and sugar beet have been maintained throughout.
(4) Reduction in rations for pigs and poultry as from the 1st of May from the basis of one-quarter of prewar numbers to one-sixth of prewar numbers and to one-twelfth as from 1st July. (It had been originally intended to increase the rations as from 1st May to the basis of one-third of prewar numbers).

As a part of the measures necessary to reduce the deficit in world supplies the United Kingdom has agreed to reduce it stated requirements already screened to the minimum necessary to maintain its lowered consumption level by another 200,000 tons. This may involve either a reduction in pipeline stocks to a point at which distribution may be interrupted with consequent disruption of the industrial economy or still further restrictions on the austere diet maintained in the United Kingdom for the six years since the beginning of the war.

The United States representatives reported on the measures taken in the United States to achieve greater production and to switch agriculture and available supplies away from the wartime emphasis on livestock products and over to a maximum production of bread grains directed to human consumption. Among other measures the United States has taken the following steps to attain maximum exports of grain:

(1) Substantial increases in the ceiling prices of grain for export to replace earlier export premiums of 30 cents per bushel on wheat and corn.
(2) Increase of the extraction rate of flour to 80 per cent.
(3) Limitation on millers' inventories including grain purchased and in transit to a 21 day supply. Actual inventories are


in many cases even less, averaging two weeks supply, with some of the big mills already shut down.
(4) Prohibition of the use of wheat and wheat products for alcoholic beverages and severe curtailment of such use of other grains including limitation to 24 hours run per month in the manufacture of alcohol and a cut in beer production to 70 per cent. of the 1945 level.
(5) Restriction on the purchase of grain and grain products by livestock feeders to amounts designed to limit the weight of hogs and cattle and the numbers of poultry.
(6) Limitation of the use of grain by mixed manufacturers to 80 per cent. of the 1945 use.
(7) A similar 80 per cent limitation on the use of corn or sorgmun grain in syrups, etc.

The United States production problem differs from the British in that it requires an extensive change from agricultural policy established to meet wartime demands instead of a further development along wartime lines as in the case of Great Britain. The measures recently adopted for diverting grain into human consumption and for cutting down consumption in livestock are only now beginning to have their full effect.

The two Governments reaffirm their belief that common measures should be taken in all zones of Germany with respect to the collection of indigenous foodstuffs, the setting of common ration standards and the adoption of a common basis for calculating import requirements. Since the timing of these measures must be left to agreement in the field, the British and American Zone Commanders will be immediately requested to set in motion the necessary consultations to achieve these objectives in their respective zones and the French Zone (these being the areas for which the Combined Food Board makes allocations). It was also deemed desirable that the ration scale in the British and French Zones of Germany should be adjusted upwards to the level prevailing in the United States Zone at the earliest feasible date and to this end full and intensified efforts should be continued in each zone to achieve maximum utilisation of food resources. It is also agreed that special emphasis should be placed on miners' rations in order to secure a maximum output of coal.

The United States Government has reviewed the Japanese import programme in order to ensure that except to the extent that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers determines that imports are essential immediately for the safety of the occupation forces, no imports shall be permitted which will have the effect of giving to the Japanese a priority or preferential treatment over the requirements of the people of any Allied Power or liberated area. The conclusion has been reached in the discussions that the low level of feeding contemplated by the current programme may not suffice even if fully met, to provide the
minimum essential for the safety of the occupation forces.

OTTAWA PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

20TH MAY, 1946.

Discussions of the world food situation have taken place over the weekend between members of the Canadian Government and Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., Lord President of the Council, of the United Kingdom, who came to Ottawa for this purpose following similar discussions with United States representatives in Washington at which the Canadian Ambassador was present.

The Canadian Government has taken note of the joint statement issued by the United Kingdom and the United States on 17th May, following Mr. Morrison's discussions in Washington and has expressed general agreement with the proposals it contains for continuing consultation and collaboration to meet the world food crisis

During the discussions in Ottawa the steps already taken by Canada and the United Kingdom to alleviate the disastrous effects of world food shortages were reviewed and broad lines of future policy were discussed.

The maximum supplies of bread grains that are at present likely to be available from May through September, 1946. have been assessed at some ten million tons, of which Canada expects to supply 2.3 million tons. Screened requirements for the same period were expected to total 13.4 million tons leaving a deficiency of 3.4 million tons or about 25 per cent A further intensive review and scaling down of these requirements to the barest minimum needs are likely to reduce the gap over this five month period to something under one million tons. Inevitably severe hardship will result and great danger of famine will continue. The Canadian Government has agreed to associate itself with the United Kingdom and the United States Governments in maintaining constant review of the situation, and to put forth its best efforts to secure and make available additional supplies of grain.

The Canadian Ministers described the comprehensive programme of agricultural production and of conservation of food which their Government is carrying out to meet this situation. In anticipation of the urgent work need for food that would arise immediately following the conclusion of the war, Canadiar food production had been expanded during the war years. This high rate of expanded production has been maintained and in some cases even increased. Wheat acreage has been raised to a very high level. Rationing ant restrictions on sales of certain foods to help provide more for export were continued and even extended; meat rationing was reimposed Complete control of agricultural products it particular grains has been retained in order to ensure that as much food as possible ma; be made available to tin hungry of other nations.

When, some months ago, it became apparen that the expected serious food situation in the world would be greatly aggravated by drough in large areas, and by other difficulties, the Canadian Government took still further step to meet the threat of famine. On March 17 the Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, an nounced a nine-point programme upon which


the Canadian Government had decided in order to increase supplies of foodstuffs for export. This programme included:

(1) Reduction by 10 per cent. below 1945 of wheat released for human consumption in Canada.
(2) Reduction by 50 per cent. of wheat released for distilleries.
(3) Special income tax arrangements to encourage immediate marketing of wheat stored on farms.
(4) Measures to release increased quantities of oats and No, 4 wheat for export.
(5) Special priorities for rail transport of wheat for export.
(6) Modification of regulations affecting bulk shipment of flour and feed.
(7) A campaign to urge Canadian farmers to plan their production to obtain the maximum yield of foodstuffs over the next four years.
(8) A campaign for the reduction of inventories of wheat and wheat products.
(9) A campaign to encourage consumer savings, avoidance of waste and development of home gardens.

This programme has been put into effect and is already producing encouraging results. Other special action has also been taken by the Government. For example, further wheat is being diverted from the producers of both potable and industrial alcohol to the extent that substitutes becomes available; additional efforts to reduce use of wheat for animal feeds are being made.

The United Kingdom representatives described the efforts being put forth in the United Kingdom. Consumer rationing has been continued and over a wide field rations are now below low wartime levels. The rations of home based United Kingdom forces have been reduced. The extraction rate of flour has been raised several times and will be maintained at 90 per cent, during the critical May to September period. Supplies of grain for distilling have been cut from 300,000 tons to 130,000 tons. The size of loaves has been reduced, while production of biscuits, cakes and pastry has been substantially curtailed. Beer production has been set at 90 per cent. of prewar production. Cereal production is being encouraged and a number of special directions and inducements have recently been introduced to this end. Feeding of millable wheat to livestock remains prohibited and rations for livestock have been cut down. Consumers are being encouraged to conserve food and to reduce waste.

Further, the United Kingdom has recently agreed to forego another 200,000 tons of imports which will thus be released for use elsewhere. This has been done with full awareness of the dangers to the United Kingdom in the way of still further interruptions of distribution or restrictions on the austere diet obtaining in the United Kingdom for the six years since the beginning of the war.

The Canadian and United Kingdom Governments agree that every effort must be put forth to remove completely the threat of world

famine, a threat which will continue at least until the harvests of 1947 become available. The two Governments agree that they will continue to collaborate through the Combined Food Board or other appropriate agencies to this end. They will continue to consult on measures of major importance which may be found necessary to meet the present world food shortage.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Churchill: May I ask the Leader of the House now that we have him back amongst us in his capacity as Leader of the House—

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: On a point of Order. Must it be assumed that we have now left the food question altogether?

Mr. Speaker: I thought if we got to the Business for next week, perhaps this question might be mentioned and that would be a better opportunity to discuss it.

Mr. Churchill: If, Mr. Speaker, you have dealt with that point of Order, perhaps I might ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make on the Business for next week.

Mr. H. Morrison: The Business for next week will be as follows:
Monday, 27th May, and Tuesday, 28th May.—Debate on the Government Motion relating to the iron and steel industry. In accordance with the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition, it is proposed to take an Allotted Supply Day formally on Tuesday and then resume and conclude the Debate on the Government Motion relating to iron and steel.
Wednesday, 29th May.—Third Reading of the National Insurance Bill. Motion to approve the Purchase Tax Exemptions (No. 2) Order.
Thursday, 30th May.—Second Reading of the British Museum Bill [Lords]. Committee and remaining stages of the Licensing Planning Bill [Lords]. Consideration of the Motion relating to Members' Salaries and Expenses. Second Reading of the Ministerial Salaries Bill and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
Friday, 31st May.—Supply (7th allotted day) (2nd part); Committee. The subject for Debate will be announced later.

Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Gentleman has announced the Third Reading of the National Insurance Bill, but we have


not so far made any great progess with the Report stage. Originally the Government offered three days for this. If we are unable to complete the Report stage at a reasonable hour tonight, will the Leader of the House consider the completion of the Report stage on Wednesday of next week? If he were willing to do that, we could also include the British Museum Bill and the Licensing Planning Bill in the programme. At any rate, there ought to be a full Debate on the Report stage of the National Insurance Bill. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned, we should agree on this occasion to the Third Reading of the National Insurance Bill being taken on Thursday, in spite of the very short interval between the Report stage and the Third Reading. We would agree to this to facilitate business. I may say that there does not appear to be any particular urgency about the question of Members' salaries. This business can wait until more important matters have been dealt with, and if any change is decided upon by the House, it can be made retrospective.

Mr. Morrison: I think it is better to see how we get on today. I am advised that as far as we can see—other people may see other things—there are only two really big issues which will arise on the remaining part of the Report stage today. There will be other things to debate, and, therefore, though we propose to suspend the Rule, we should hope that with good will and cooperation we may complete the Report stage at a reasonable hour.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Report stage has hardly begun, and it means taking the Report stage of this important Bill in one day, which is quite unreasonable?

Mr. Morrison: Two days. This is the second day.

Mr. Butler: Yesterday it was Committee.

Mr. Morrison: It is true there was a recommittal yesterday, but it is two days over all. Moreover, if I recollect rightly the right hon. Gentleman himself or one of his colleagues said on the Second Reading that it was not a Bill that in principle was contested by the Opposition, and in those circumstances, with the Opposition declaring themselves

friendly to the principles of the Bill, I should have thought that we would have got through the Report stage with reasonable speed.

Mr. Oliver Poole: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in order to expedite the Committee stage, discussion on many points was given up on the assurance of the Minister of National Insurance that they would be raised on the Report stage? I fully agree that some are points which are not very material, but they were brought forward from both sides in order to improve the machinery of the Bill. It is, therefore, quite wrong that we should be limited to one day. No one can say that the Opposition has been contentious. These matters, as I have said, were brought forward from both sides for the general improvement of the Bill, and I contend that we ought to be given extra time for their discussion.

Mr. Morrison: I cannot know, in detail, what happened in the Standing Committee, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance will do his best to meet any undertakings which he gave. Anyhow, let us see how we get on. I have a feeling that we shall get on quicker than the number of the Amendments on the Order Paper would indicate.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those who had some anxiety on this subject. are satisfied that there are only two points of principle remaining to be discussed, and that with reasonable cooperation from both sides of the House' they are capable of being discussed and disposed of today?

Mr. Morrison: In view of the past and anticipated activities of my hon. Friend, he is a most material witness in this matter.

Mr. Churchill: I trust that in spite of the decision which has just been announced, the Leader of the House will consider, as we proceed with the discussion, the question of finding more time— an additional day—for the Report stage of this Bill. Here is a case in which the whole business of Standing Committees is involved. We are anxious to develop that procedure to relieve the House, but it follows that if a Bill is discussed upstairs, its Report stage is of greater consequence in the House. I trust that this may be a


matter for discussion, and that the right hon. Gentleman will not feel himself entirely inhibited by the dictates which have just been expressed.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the Leader of the House tell us the outcome of the discussions, through the usual channels, on the request made for time to discuss the Motion standing in my name, and in the name of 274 other hon. Members of the House, relating to Civil Service pensions?

[That the whole question of the counting of unestablished Service for Civil Service pensions should be referred to a Select Committee of the House.]

Mr. Morrison: I am not familiar with any discussions through the usual channels on these points, but the answer to the hon. Member is that I do not see, nor do the Government see, the practicability of affording time for a discussion of that Motion. I may say, however, that my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. Williams) has a Question to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter next week, and it is possible that the Chancellor's answer may have a material bearing on this point.

Mr. Brown: Could the Leader of the House say at what point between 199 signatures and 615 signatures, the signatures of Members of this House really count?

Mr. Morrison: I shall try always not to give way to this doctrine of a plebiscite as a method of Parliamentary procedure, whatever the number.

Mr. Churchill: I would like to return to the question of food. I understand that we are to have some talks, and that on Monday it will be settled whether or not the Government will give a day for a Debate on food. May I observe that Friday, which is half a Supply Day, is available? I understand that that day will be kept open.

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. We shall be most happy to talk through the usual channels, and I hope to make a statement on Monday.

Mr. Churchill: I am sorry to be so persistent, but our Business does require some discussion. With regard to the week after

next, can the Leader of the House tell us anything about the Debate on foreign affairs, for which a request was made some time ago? I hope that it will be possible for the Foreign Secretary to open this Debate. It is right that a statement should be made by him to the House concerning the Paris Conference and other matters of immense consequence which have been proceeding. Not since February have we had a Debate on this matter. I am sure the Government will feel—and I am putting this point particularly to the Leader of the House—that they should provide this opportunity, and in order that the Debate may be continued for a second day, which is essential to a Debate on topics of this vast character, we, for our part, should be prepared to give up our claim for one Supply Day. so as to make our contribution.

Mr. Morrison: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I think both days arc in Committee of Supply. I understand that arrangements are being made, to the end which the right hon. Gentleman would wish, for the week after next. I hope it will be all right for a two days' Debate, and I shall convey to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary the right hon. Gentleman's wish that he should open the Debate with a survey of and a statement on the foreign situation.

Mr. Churchill: With regard to the days taken for Supply, it has always been the custom that the Opposition are consulted on what topics should be taken, but when the Government have a great account to give of most important matters of public and national policy, it is for them, in the first instance, to find the occasion for opening that Debate. If the Opposition wished to prolong the Debate then they might contribute their Supply Day. I therefore hope that the Leader of the House might find one day, and that the extra day might be found from our side of the House.

Mr. Morrison: With great respect, I do not think I altogether agree. My recollection is that when we were in Opposition, we were expected to take Supply Days when they were available, except on occasions of Votes of Censure, and heavier affairs of that kind. I understand from the Chief Whip that Supply Days have been agreed on, but if the Opposition wish to discuss the matter further it can be discussed. As I have said, with regard to


the request that the Debate should be opened by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary with a comprehensive statement, I shall convey that wish to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Churchill: Then the question of one or two Supply Days can be discussed through the usual channels?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, but we had provisionally arranged for a two days' Debate.

BILL PRESENTED

MINISTERIAL SALARIES BILL

"To make further provision as to the salaries of certain Ministers of the Crown and other persons, and as to the payment of salaries or allowances as Members of Parliament to persons in receipt of salaries or pensions under the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937," presented by the Prime Minister; supported by Mr. Herbert Morrison, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Glenvil Hall; to be read a Second

time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 128.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business, be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)"—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 295; Noes, 147.

Division No. 182.
AYES.
4.9 p.m.


Adams. Richard (Balham)
Crossman, R. H S
Holman, P.


Adams, W. T (Hammersmith, South)
Daggar. G.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)


Allen, Soholefield (Crewe)
Daines, P.
Horabin, T L


Allighan, Garry
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
House, G.


Alpass, J. H.
Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Hubbard, T.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W>


Attewell, H C.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. B
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Hughes- Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Awbery, S. S.
Deer, G.
Hughes, Lt H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)


Ayles, W. H.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusho[...]ne)


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Delargy, Captain H. J
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)


Bacon, Miss A.
Diamond, J
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Baird, Capt. J.
Dobbie, W.
Irving, W. J


Balfour, A.
Dodds, N. N.
Janner, B.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Douglas, F. C. R.
Jeser, G. (Winchester)


Barstow, P. G.
Driberg, T. E. M.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)


Barton, C.
Dumpleton, C. W.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)


Battley, J. R.
Durbin, E. F M
Keenan, W.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Dye, S.
Kenyon, C.


Belcher, J. W.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
King, E. M.


Bellenger, F. J.
Edelman, M
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E


Benson, G.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Kinley, J.


Berry, H.
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Kirby, B. V


Beswick, F.
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Lang, G.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Lavers, S.


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Lee, F. (Hulme)


Binns, J.
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)


Bienkinsop, Capt. A
Ewart, R.
Leonard, W.


Blyton, W. R.
Fairhurst, F.
Leslie, J. R.


Boardman, H.
Farthing, W. J.
Lever, Fl. Off. N. H


Bottomley, A G.
Forman, J. C.
Levy, B. W.


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Lewis, J. (Bolton)


Bowen, R.
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Lindgren, G. S.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Freeman, Maj. J (Watford)
Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Gaitskell, H. T. N,
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Logan, D. G.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Lyne, A W.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Gibbins, J.
McAllister, G.


Brown, George (Belper)
Gibson, C. W.
McEntee, V. La T.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Gilzean, A.
McGhee, H. G


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Glanville, J, E. (Consett)
McGovern, J.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Goodrich, H. E.
Mack, J. D.


Burden, T. W.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)


Burke, W. A.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
McKinlay, A. S.


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Maclean, N. (Govan)


Byers. Lt.-Col. F.
Grenfell, D. R.
McLeavy, F


Callaghan, James
Grey, C. F
McNeil, H.


Castle, Mrs. B. A
Grierson, E.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Champion, A. d.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)


Chater, D.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)


Chetwynd, Capt. G. R.
Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)
Mayh[...]w, C. P.


Clitherow, Dr. R.
Gruflyd, Prof. W. J.
Messer, F.


Cluse, W. S.
Guy, W. H.
Middleton, Mrs. L


Cobb, F. A.
Haire, Flt.-Lieul. J. (Wycombe)
Mikardo, Ian


Cocks, F. S.
Hale, Leslie
Mitchison, Maj. G R


Coldrick, W.
Hall, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Aberdare)
Monslow, W.


Collick, P.
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Montague, F.


Collindridge, F
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Collins, V. J.
Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Morley, R.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Hardy, E. A.
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)


Comyns, Dr. L.
Harris, H. Wilson
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Harrison, J.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)


Cove, W G.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Mori, D. L.


Crawley, Flt.- Lieut. A.
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)
Moyle, A




Murray, J. D.
Segal, Dr. S.
Usborne, Henry


Nally, W.
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


Naylor, T. E.
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.
Viant, S. P.


Neal, H. (Claycross)
Shurmer, P.
Wadsworth, G.


Nichol, Mrs M. E (Bradford, N.)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Walkden, E.


Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Walker, G. H.


Noel-Buxton, Lady
Skeffington, A. M.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehnrst)


Oldfield, W. H.
Skinnard, F. W.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Orbach, M.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)
Warbey, W. N.


Paget, R. T.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Watson, W. M.


Palmer, A. M. F.
Smith, T. (Normanton)
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Parker, J.
Snow, Capt. J. W.
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Parkin, Flt.- Lieut. B. T.
Solley, L. J.
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Pearson, A.
Soskice, Maj, Sir F.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Peart, Capt. T. F.
Sparks, J. A.
Wigs, Col. G. E.


Perrins, W.
Stamford, W
Wilkes, Maj. L.


Popplewell, E.
Steele, T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Porter, E. (Warrington)
Stephen, C.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Porter, G. (Leeds)
Stokes, R. R.
Willey, O. G. (Gleveland)


Price, M. Philips
Stubbs, A. E.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Pritt, D. N.
Swingler, S.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Proctor, W. T.
Symonds, Maj. A. L.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Pursey, Cmdr, H.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Williamson, T.


Ranger, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Reeves, J.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)
Wilson, J. H.


Reid, T. (Swindon)
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)
Wise, Major F, J.


Richards, R.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Woods, G. S.


Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Yates, V. F.


Robens, A.
Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Ed'b'gh, E.)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)
Thurtle, E.
Zilliacus, K.


Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Tiffany, S.



Royle, C.
Timmons, J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.


Sargood, R
Titterington, M. F.
Captain Michael Stewar[...]


Scollan, T.
Tolley, L.
Mr. Simmons.


Scott-Elliot, W.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.





NOES.


Aitken, Hon. Max
Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Morris-Jones, Sir H.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R
Hare, Lt.-Col. Hn. J. H. (W'db'ge)
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)


Astor, Hon. M.
Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Mott- Radolyffe, Maj. C. E


Baldwin, A. E.
Head, Brig. A. H.
Neven-Spence, Sir B.


Baxter, A. B.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
Nicholson, G


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Nield, B. (Chester)


Beechman, N. A
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Noble, Comdr. A H. P.


Bennett, Sir P
Hollis, M. C.
Osborne, C.


Birch, Nigel
Holmes, Sir J. Stanley (Harwich)
Peake, Rt. Hon. O


Boothby, R.
Hope, Lord J.
Pickthorn, K.


Bossom, A. C-
Howard, Hon. A.
Pitman, I. J.


Bower, N.
Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Prescott, Stanley


Brailhwaite, Lt. Comdr. J. G.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Jarvis, Sir J.
Raikes, H. V.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Jeffreys, General Sir G
Rayner, Brig. R.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)
Jennings, R.
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Carson, E.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Ch[...]len, C.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Renton, D.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Roberts, H. (Handswarth)


Clarke, Col. R. S.
Langford-Holt, J.
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E, A. H
Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E
Lindsay, M. (Solihull)
Ropner, Col. L.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Linstead, H. N.
Ross, Sir R.


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Sanderson, Sir F.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col, O. E.
Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Savory, Prof D. L.


Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Scott, Lord W.


Cuthbert, W. N.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


De la Bère, R.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Digby, Maj. S. W.
MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.
Snadden, W. M.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Macdonald, Capt, Sir P (I. of Wight)
Spence, H. R.


Drayson, G. B.
Mackeson, Lt. Col. H. R.
Stanley, Rt Hon. O.


Drewe, C.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Duthie, W. S.
Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)


Eccles, D. M.
MacLeod, Capt. J.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Sutcliffe, H.


Erroll, F. J.
Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Marples, A. E.
Teeling, William


Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)
Marsden, Capt. A.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Fraser, Sir l. (Lonsdale)
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N-


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Touche, G. C.


Glossop, C. W. H.
Mellor, Sir J.
Vane, W. M T.


Glyn, Sir R.
Molson, A. H. E.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Grimston, R. V.
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.
Walker-Smith, D.







Ward, Hon. G. R.
Williams, C. (Torquay)
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)



Wheatley, Colonel M. J.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


White, Sir D. (Fareham)
York, C.
Commander Agnew and Mr. Studholme.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [22nd May], "That the Clause (Arrangements with friendly societies) be read a Second time," proposed on Consideration of the BUI, as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal).

Question again proposed, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Raikes (Liverpool, Wavertree): I understand from your Ruling last night, Mr. Speaker, that the Amendment to Clause 46—in page 41, line 8, after "payment," To insert:
 and for the payment of sickness benefit, maternity benefit, widows' allowance, death grant and such further benefits as the Minister may decide to or in respect of a member of an approved society by and through the approved society of which the insured person is a member on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed in the regulations."
—standing on the Order Paper in the name of my hon. Friends and myself, may also be discussed upon the new Clause which we are debating at the present time. In point of fact the Amendment asks, to all intents and purposes, that not only friendly societies but all competent approved societies should be made part of the scheme under discussion.
The suggestion is not an unwise one because one realised last night the real dilemma in which the Government are placed. I am not going to spend much time talking about pledges or giving a lecture on morality. But we are in this difficulty—200 hon. Members on the Government side have, in perfectly good faith, pledged themselves to support the case for the inclusion of the friendly and approved societies. The Minister, on the other hand, has taken the view that the friendly societies cannot as such be incorporated in the scheme. We have not yet heard the Minister's reply but I imagine that the argument he will put forward will be that these societies represent 8,000,000 insured persons only, while his full scheme will include about

24,000,000 persons, and that, in his view, it would be impossible to expand bodies covering 8,000,000 people, to cover 24,000,000 people. Secondly, he will say that from the administrative point of view, it would be difficult to have 8,000,000 persons being dealt with by friendly societies, and 16,000,000 being worked by a State organisation, and have the two running together.
That is probably the Minister's view, and the result is that one of two things will happen. If the new Clause were put into the Bill and nothing else, the Minister would find himself compelled to administer something about the possibilities of administering which he is extremely reluctant and depressed. On the other hand, if the new Clause is not inserted in its present form, a number of hon. Members will be bound to go contrary to the pledges they gave at election time. I am not going to indulge in any personalities, but I say that it would be unfortunate if we could not devise a way of avoiding considerable sections of the people of this country feeling, in their bones, without perhaps realising all the difficulties involved, that the Government can say one thing at the Election, and then when the Election is over, can go back on the pledges made. That is the difficulty which hon. Members are feeling.
If we have the full scheme as envisaged by the Minister without either the friendly societies or the approved societies taking part, we shall have, as long as voluntary insurance continues, a degree of duality which is unsatisfactory from every point of view. We shall have on the compulsory side the State service administering benefits, and entirely different people administering voluntary benefits to the same persons. That is a duality which should be avoided. My suggestion, to which I ask the House even at this late stage to give some consideration, is that all competent approved societies should be brought into the scheme as agents. First and foremost, we should have the organisations which today cover 17,000,000 persons. The Minister I am sure would agree that it would be mechanically possible for such an organisation to be expanded to cover the 24,000,000 people, including the new


entrants to the scheme. It could work, and it would avoid duality.
Certain objections have been raised to this. At the start Sir William Beveridge made a differentiation between the forms of friendly and approved societies that might be included in the general scheme. From that differentiation in his Report have arisen many of the difficulties in which hon. Members have placed themselves or are now placed. What are the main objections? In the discussions in Standing Committee, both the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister touched on certain of the objections. If I paraphrase the arguments put forward, it is because I do not want to waste time by reading long extracts from speeches made in the Standing Committee, and I hope either the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary will pull me up at once, if I say anything which gives a wrong impression in what I might describe as a curtailed version of speeches of a certain length which were made. First, the Parliamentary Secretary made the observation that, in due course, he thought there would be no voluntary side to approved societies at all. I gather the inference was that as the voluntary side would grow smaller and smaller there is no particular object in meeting the danger of duality to which I referred. In my view, the Parliamentary Secretary was begging the question. It may or may not be that the voluntary side will grow less in the future. I think it is doubtful, but, be that as it may, for a considerable period we shall have voluntary and compulsory insurance going on side by side. In fact, the idea was encouraged by the Minister himself in what he said on the Second Reading of the Bill.
The second objection is twofold. It was pointed out by the Parliamentary Secretary in the discussion on home service. I am one of those who believe in home service. It is of very great importance in the administration of sickness benefit. It was said by the Parliamentary Secretary that, after all, home service is not of such vital importance because already so much that is done, particularly by friendly societies, is either administered by post or in some other rather indirect way. The Minister went a stage further. He said that he was not prepared to impose home service upon people who did not want it and he pointed out—I think

with some justice—that there might be a considerable number of persons from the middle classes coming under the new scheme who would not require or desire home service. That is what I understood him to say, but if the latter phrase is mistaken, I will withdraw it.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I want to get it correct. My experience of the working class is that not every one wants persons calling on them.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Raikes: The right hon. Gentleman went a little further in Committee because he referred to the new middle classes and suggested that they would not like it much and said that he was not prepared to provide something which the middle class and the working class did not want. I would say that if we retain all the approved societies acting as agents under the scheme, it would not mean that everybody need have a home service. It would mean undoubtedly that in a large number of cases, where persons are enjoying home service at the present time, it would be maintained by the agents who are visiting people now. But it would also be perfectly possible under the scheme to make it clear that any person who preferred to have his benefit administered by post, could have that done rather than have personal visitation. On the other hand, in the Minister's scheme, it is admitted that the home service itself will largely disappear. I am convinced that the less home service you have, the greater will be the dissatisfaction among the very Large number of persons who believe in personal contact and who enjoy it.
It was argued by the Parliamentary Secretary that a good agent would be just as good if he were working for the State as if he were working for a friendly society or any other approved body. No one would deny that. All that I would observe is that if your home service goes, and if the very men who otherwise would be giving the home service are put into a social security office, while they may be just as keen they will not have the opportunity to do the work they are doing at present. It would be circumscribed. Beyond that, I think it is certain that a good many of the better men at present employed by the industrial societies, will be tempted by the voluntary side, and


may not find their way into the State scheme at all.
Those were the principal objections made by the Government—bar one. Here, if the Minister will forgive me for saying so, I think he was a little disingenuous in one point that he raised, tie said that the fundamental defect of the approved societies in the past had been that equal contributions provided unequal benefits. He certainly gave the impression to me and, I think, to other Members of the Committee, that he regarded that as a reason for not employing them now. Yet the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that under the 1911 Act, the approved societies had no alternative but to do that. They were not drawing for their industrial societies any surplus that they made in their approved societies. They were, to all intents and purposes, told by the State if they had a surplus that it ought to go to the beneficiaries in their society. The suggestion that because they did what they were bound to do, and because they did not leave off doing it under the system which encouraged them to do it, therefore they must be left out, is not worthy of the extremely able case which the right hon. Gentleman generally makes when points are put to him.
The right hon. Gentleman knows quite well that under the new Bill, under which the approved societies would be prepared to work, the question of unequal benefit for the same contribution could not possibly arise. There would be equal contributions and equal benefits, whoever was administering it. Do not let the House forget this further point, that in spite of the suggested undesirability of the approved societies, during the transition period of the next two years, probably longer, the Minister has to rely upon these very societies to carry out his scheme, because at the moment he has nothing on paper, and has to use the machinery which is working now. I maintain that that machinery which will carry him on in the months and years ahead, could perfectly well be made permanent.
There were only two other objections raised against the approved societies as a whole to which I shall refer. They were the two main arguments raised against the approved societies by Sir William Beveridgc himself. The first was that the industrial offices have a profit motive and, therefore, it is unsatis-

factory that in any way they should be connected with the administration of Government funds. Yet Sir William Beveridge's great leader, Mr. Lloyd George, did not consider that was a reason for debarring them in 1911. Let hon. Members remember, that the profit motive would be immoral only in this case. No one would consider the profit motive of itself immoral, otherwise we should not be proposing to increase our salaries in a short time. But the profit motive, it is said, would be immoral if it meant that the societies would be able to make money for themselves out of Government funds. However, that cannot happen. All hon. Members know that the approved societies are completely separate from the life offices. They are administered on their own. Their offices cannot touch the surplus, or make any profit whatsoever. The agents of the offices are employed merely as a matter of convenience for enrolling persons in approved societies, very often, in fact generally, in the very home which the agent already visits for voluntary purposes. There is nothing immoral in an approved society, which can gain no funds for the industrial side out of the Government, acting as an agent for the Government.
I refer to only one other objection. It has been said that if all the approved societies were no longer able to administer their own funds, there might be lack of incentive, and laxity in regard to claims. Every hon. Member knows that the safeguards against laxity are very great. Under the Minister's scheme first there is the doctor's certificate; there is no sickness benefit without the doctor's certificate. Secondly, there is the sickness visitor who will be employed by the Stale; that is check No. 2. Thirdly, there is the provision of the reference to medical officers of the State wherever there is any doubt Obviously every case will be under constant review by the Government auditors from time to time. Those are reasonable safeguards which make utterly fantastic the idea of approved societies acting as agents being lax over claims.
I have tried to put the case against the objections raised to the approved societies. I hope the Minister will deal with some of those points when he replies, because, as I said at the beginning, here is a way out of a real dilemma. Here is a way to use the existing machinery and


avoid duality, to maintain the home contact and the home service, to avoid any suspicion of the broken pledge and, beyond that, there is the machinery which the Minister knows he could expand and which could do the job. I have put forward those suggestions, I hope without heat, because I believe this is a case which should be argued on its merits, and, when tempers begin to rise, wisdom generally begins to thaw.

Mr. Clement Davies: During my long association with this House I think this is one of the most serious Debates in which I have taken part. It involves a problem that each hon. Member must set himself to answer, the problem of how he is to vote on this occasion. This is much more than a mere matter of administration. The Minister in his Second Reading speech, and in Committee upstairs, seemed to regard it merely as a matter of administration. To me there are two great questions of principle involved here. One is the position of any voluntary scheme when a State scheme is introduced. Is it to have any position, or is it to go altogether? The other question is, what is our position as Members of Parliament, having made statements to the electors as a result of which we were elected as their representatives in this House? It is a serious problem which has to be considered as carefully as it was considered by our great predecessor Edmund Burke. He faced up to this question and gave his decision. Those two questions are more far-reaching than a matter of administration.
Everyone has been paying tribute to the excellent work which has been done now for almost two centuries, certainly for more than a century and a half, by the approved societies. They were the pioneers in this, and this scheme which we are now to make of universal application is their scheme. No people have been more anxious for the unification of that scheme. No people have been more anxious to make it available to all, than the members of the friendly societies. They know the difficulties through which the people of this country have gone, and they are fully conscious of the position. They were, without exception, anxious to take part in working out a general, universal scheme. This was a matter present to the minds of all

when Sir William Beveridge was set the task of considering how he could frame a general scheme to get rid of want. He was not alone in considering that matter. He was given the assistance of some of the ablest civil servants and it was not realised until he had actually finished his job that they could not join with him in signing the Report. Letters passed between the right hon. Gentleman the present Lord Privy Seal—who had really initiated the inquiry and set Sir William Beveridge to work—and Sir William Beveridge, in which Sir William had to say that he would take full responsibility for this matter as political questions might be involved, and it was not right that the civil servants should be brought in.
The point is that the civil servants considered this question with Sir William Beveridge, and the Report said that when we came to the administration we could and should bring in the friendly societies in order to assist in working out the scheme. Since then, something has happened. I am sure that the Minister has taken the best advice available, but it looks as if the advice which has now been tendered by the civil servants, is that the friendly societies cannot be brought in. No one has a greater admiration for the civil servants than I have, but, if they are solemnly tendering that advice, my respect for their capacity—

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am sure the hon. and learned Member will not mind my clearing up this point. Long before I became a Minister, when speaking for my party in this matter, I took precisely the same view as I now take.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. C. Davies: I am much obliged, but will the right hon. Gentleman also realise that although he had very great experience of administration in South Wales, this is the first occasion on which he has sat on the Treasury Bench at the head of a great State Department? Against his view, and the advice which must be tendered to him now, I would prefer the longer experience of two people who really initiated this work, in 1911, Sir William Beveridge and the right hon. Gentleman the Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter). If I remember rightly, the Senior Burgess for Oxford University was the head of the Department dealing with the approved societies and got the


whole thing into shape. During the Second Reading Debate, he said he agreed that not all friendly societies could be brought into the scheme, but that certain of them could and should be brought in. That is what is now being proposed. It is suggested that not all, but such as the Minister would select, should be brought in.
Surely when the Minister had advice of that kind tendered to him, the matter ought to have been debated, not merely across the Floor of the House, but between those who say they cannot be brought in, and the friendly societies who say they can and should be brought in. Such a thing has not been done. On the other hand, what has happened is that the Minister himself turns to the friendly societies and asks them to help him to steer this ship out of port, to begin its voyage for the benefit of the people. He says "Come and work your passage—not right across so that you will be part of the scheme, but work it for a time, and then I will drop you." Surely it would have been better to say" Come and help me to work the passage right across." These are old mariners who have had a longer experience than either the Minister or I in regard to this matter, an experience of a century and more of how to deal with this human problem. But the Minister says, "I cannot do it. It will make my scheme untidy; it will not be uniform, it will not be compact."
It will not be less compact it these people are brought in. Already, under the Minister's own scheme, there are three offices through which benefits can be paid—his own office, the Post Office and the employment exchange. In the Committee the Minister said that it would be paid in three ways. People could have persons calling upon them, but he did not want to press that, because certain people do not like too many visitors of that kind. The money could be sent to them through the post, or they could call on the officers. What is the objection to doing this through the old friendly society which has looked after them in the past, which they know and understand and which contains fellow workers whom they know by their Christian names or by some pet name? But the Minister says, "No, I must have this done in this particular way."
I should not have thought he would raise the question of administration on to

a higher level than the question of principle. May I put to him the real principle which is involved here? Whenever a State scheme is introduced, is the voluntary system then to be entirely ignored and left out, or can it still render some assistance? We have started on a great programme of social reform by legislation. A great number of things have been done which I consider should have been done long ago; much more has still to be done. But are we now to give a warning to all voluntary associations in this country that as these matters come forward, the moment the State comes in, then it is "Good-bye, we have no further use for you "? Suppose, perchance, a national wages scheme is introduced in this country; will the trade unions receive the same cursory "Goodbye" as the friendly societies are now getting under this Bill; or will the Minister responsible turn to them and say, ' You have done excellent work in regard to wages in the past. Now come and help me to work the national wages scheme "?
Voluntary associations cannot be expected to be completely tidy. They have been a slow growth, fostered by the people of this country. They are like our common law, of which we are immensely proud—elastic and ready to meet new needs as they arise and so much better than a code which has been put upon the people from above. It is not tidy, like the Code Napoleon, but it is far more ready to meet new situations that arise. The same is true of trade unions and friendly societies. They will not be so tidy and compact as something designed in a Whitehall office, but they will be nearer the needs and hearts of the British people.
I turn to the other point of principle. I regard the giving of my pledged word to anyone as placing upon me a sacred obligation to carry out that word, whether it is given by word of mouth, or in a document, whether it is given under oath or in some other way. My word is my bond. My word was given to the people who trust me, to whom I had to give, as had other Members in their own constituencies, an account of my stewardship and of my hopes during the General Election. This point was put to me and I answered it, as I am sure all candidates answered it, after due attention. Am I now to say that I gave my word thought, or without realisation, or am I


to say what an hon. Member opposite horrified me last night by saying—that he would prefer to break his word rather than turn out the Government? I would prefer to turn out any Government, however great, rather than go back on my word. I say so with all the sincerity that is in me.
May I make a suggestion to the Government? Hon. Members on their side of the House are put in an awkward position. I was very sorry for, and sympathised with, the mover and seconder of this new Clause last night. I have myself on many occasions had to take a view different from that of the Front Bench. It is not comfortable or easy; it does not make one popular with one's fellows. Those two hon. Members performed their task extraordinarily well, and with deep sincerity. Other hon. Members are in a difficulty. Do not let this be made a mere Treasury Bench matter. May I appeal to the Government to throw this open to the House; let there be a free vote upon this matter? I say to them, "You ought not to constrain any man against his will in any circumstances. Do not constrain him to go back on the word he has given to his constituents. Let him exercise his own free will and his own free vote tonight. What have you to fear? You will gather greater strength by doing it."
My feeling is that this is only a point of administration so far as the Government are concerned, but that there are also two points of principle. One is whether, within the State scheme, use can be made of the voluntary organisations which have done such excellent work in the past. The other is the sanctity of one's pledged word. I urge the Government not to make it more awkward for those who want to support them, who wish to help them to go on to the other great things they want to achieve. This scheme is only part of the much bigger tasks that are coming. This scheme will break unless there is full employment. I say to the Government, "You desire and we desire to conquer want, squalor and disease. Do not make our position more difficult on a mere point of administration."It would be far better if the Government said that this was a matter which they would leave to the free will of the House. The House has never lacked courage when its own freedom and the

position of its Members were at stake. Let Members exercise a free vote tonight.

Mr. Blyton: I listened to last night's Debate with great interest, and today I have listened with great interest to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). I say quite frankly that when a pledge is given at a particular time, and circumstances change after it has been given, those who have given it are entitled to alter their opinion, if they think that to be in the best interests of the whole community and not in the interests of a minority. I met no deputations; I had no questions addressed to my platforms. I received a letter, which I signed, in accordance with what I thought at that time could be fulfilled. Many things have happened since which have made me change my mind, and I shall face my electorate courageously and honestly, and tell them the reasons why I have done so. In 26 years' experience as a trade union leader, in the case of many of the aspirations I have intended to fulfil, after meeting the employers I have had to change my ground, in order to keep the men in employment, or to try to ease their particular demands at that particular time. Therefore, I am courageous enough today to tell the House quite frankly the reasons why I have changed my mind. It is because of my past experience in connection with these matters.
Under this Bill, there are to be one card, one stamp and one administration. I ask those who have argued in favour of this new Clause how they propose to allocate the one card for stamp purposes between the unemployment side and the friendly society side? It is easy to do that today when the unemployment card is separate from the national health insurance card. But if a man is sick, or is unemployed, who is to have his card under the new arrangements? But who is to determine what number of stamps he has on the card in relation to his benefit? And will (the applicant have to run between the Ministry's office and the friendly society's office to see what his stamp position will be under this new scheme?
5.0 p.m.
What is the position, under the present scheme, of a sickness case who goes on to unemployment benefit? If a man has been off sick, and is then declared fit for work and is unemployed, he gets Form


221 at the employment exchange. That form gives him his last three days of sickness as his waiting days on coming directly on to unemployment benefit. The man has to go to the employment exchange to get Form 221, then he goes to the approved society secretary to verify it—it may be half a mile or a mile, he may need to go on a bus—and then he has to go back to the exchange. Time and labour have been spent on trying to get his three waiting days. Under this scheme, with one social security service, there will be direct contact between the local area office and the employment exchange, and when the man presents his card there will be no running about to get Form 221 because one office will deal with it and the man will go on to benefit immediately.
There is another matter. If a man has been on compensation and was off work, say, in the month of October of last year, he gets his arrears card in October of this year. The ordinary working man is not an encyclopaedia of dates when he has been off work. He has to go to the doctor, and perhaps pay for a doctor's note. He has then to go to his approved society and put it in, to get his arrears abolished for the week during which he was on compensation. These are facts and there is no one in the House who can deny them. Under the single social security scheme, at the local area office they know when a man has been on compensation. They have tabulated his dates and there is no arrears card to look for. There is no running to the doctor, it is an automatic change from one department to the other, in which the man has no running about at all.
We recently passed a Measure in this House—it is now in another place— known as the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill. Under that Bill a benefit is paid to a man who has had successive accidents. If a man has a right to compensation for his first accident and sustains a second, that man has to choose whether he will take his compensation payment plus sickness benefit, or whether he will take the £2 5s. 0d. under the Injuries Insurance Bill, whichever is the higher. If the man elects to take his sickness pay because he is likely to get compensation, what will he have to do under the scheme that has been suggested? He will have to go to his approved society secretary for his sick pay and then to the

Government local area office for his compensation. He will have to go to two places which may be a mile apart. I see some hon. Members shaking their heads, but there can be no argument put against it. If two separate organisations are to deal with it a man who has had two successive accidents will have to go to two places to receive his weekly income.
Let us take, again, the case of a man who is on light rate. He falls sick, and again he has to go to two places, when under the Bill as suggested by the Minister there is only the one office with which he will have to deal. There is another side to it. Under the present Act if a man suffers an accident and the employers contest his claim for compensation and refuse to pay, nearly all the friendly societies refuse to pay sickness benefit until the case has been decided. The result is that in the past such men have had to go to the public assistance committee in order to live. At the end of the period, when his case has been decided—it may be two or three months later—whatever he has had from the guardians is paid back out of his compensation. if compensation is paid, and if he loses the compensation the guardians must be reimbursed out of his sickness pay. What will happen under the scheme suggested by the Minister? If the case is contested the Minister is bound to pay the man his sickness pay, saving him wending his weary way in front of boards of guardians, who determine whether he shall live or not.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North): Surely all these matters were known to the hon. Member before he gave his pledge?

Mr. Blyton: When I gave the pledge the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act was not then an Act. It has become one since I came in last year.

Mr. House: The hon. Member will be aware that under that Act an injured person has not only to go to his friendly society, but he has to go to the public insurance office, and in those circumstances, it is three directions in which he has to go.

Mr. Blyton: He has so many directions under the present Act, but they will be entirely eliminated under the scheme proposed by the Minister. What happens in relation to pensions? An applicant has to get a pink form on which he puts the


name of the approved society and his branch and number. When the form goes to Blackpool there has to be correspondence between the approved society and the Ministry to test the applicant's record. That will be eliminated by the new scheme and administrative costs will be saved.

Sir Arthur Salter: The hon. Member seems to be arguing as if this new Clause would affect the method by which people who are not members of approved societies would get their benefit. This Clause only refers to members of friendly societies. If a member of a friendly society drawing benefits from his society is entitled also to State benefit, surely it is infinitely more convenient for him to draw the two parts of his benefit through the same institution, and other persons are not in any way affected.

Mr. Blyton: It is impossible even for a member of a friendly society to do any other than the way I have illustrated. If a man is a member of a friendly society and is on compensation, he will have to go to the area officer under the Ministry and then to his approved society secretary for his sickness pay. He still has to go to two places.

Mr. Goodrich: Even under the Minister's own scheme, he will first have to go to the local office and then to the area office, and I suggest that there is no difference.

Mr. Blyton: When he goes to the local office the job is finished, as far as the actual man is concerned. Some 28,000,000 people are to be brought in under this insurance scheme, 8,000,000 of whom are members of approved societies, but there are not 8,000,000 who are members of the friendly societies for sickness benefit. It is well known that many miners' sons and daughters who never went near the pit were members of the Miners' Provident Fund Approved Society, and it is that which gave them their huge membership. So that if we halve this figure and give the friendly societies a membership of about 4,000,000. that is the matter involved in the figures I am now placing before the House.
I should be the first to agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery that friendly societies have done very useful work. They have carried on something that ought to have been a State obligation many years ago. Now we are

reaching the position in which the State is recognising its obligations, and the question that arises is, Who is to conduct the work? A very important question which I wish to ask hon. Members is, Why are the private insurance companies so very quiet in this agitation? My suspicion is that they hope, if the friendly 'societies get through, to be able to get through also, and to establish approved societies under the scheme.

Mr. Goodrih: Is it suggested that the Labour Party in this House shall again go against the memorandum that was sent out from Transport House stating very definitely that in no circumstances would the industrial societies be included in the scheme?

Mr. Blyton: I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting that once the friendly societies come in we could not keep the private insurance companies out, if we were to be fair [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If hon. Members say "No," may I ask the reason for the hon. Member for Wavertree (Mr. Raikes) putting forward his Amendment, in which he wants to bring them all in? On top of that, I would point out that the co-operative and trade union approved societies have said that they are prepared voluntarily to go out of existence in the interests of a State scheme as suggested by the Minister. The trade unions and the cooperatives make up a very big bulk of approved society membership. Reference has been made to equal benefits. It cannot be denied that many friendly societies would not touch with a barge pole occupations of a hazardous character. As a member of a miners' approved society, which I still am, I have paid subscriptions week after week; because of the high incidence of sickness among miners we only received 15s. a week, if we were sick, while the friendly societies were able to give dental treatment and other treatment and £1 a week sickness benefit. I am very pleased that the Bill will bring this unequal situation to an end.
Now a word about sick visiting. My father was a sick visitor many years ago for the Free Gardeners. He was a secretary of their friendly society. Sick visitations in origin were—and let us not be mealy mouthed about the matter—to protect the funds of the friendly societies.


Their rules were quite plain. If a person on benefit was out of his house after eight o'clock at night the benefit was stopped. I hope that if a man on benefit under the Bill goes out for a glass of beer after eight o'clock my right hon. Friend will not stop his benefit. That was the origin I have spent all my life among the working class and I know that they do not like people coming to their houses, knocking on their doors to see them and give them their 15s. or 16s. a week. When I was a trade union official I preferred people to come to my door rather than that I should go and torment them by knocking at their doors. I believe the idea of the sick visitor being the link between the home and the society is very far fetched.
I finish as I began. I have changed my outlook. I have given my reasons and I shall face the reaction, if there be any, in my constituency. I say to my colleagues on these benches: "For Heaven's sake, do not abstain. That is cowardice. If you have changed your opinion, go into the Lobby with the Minister. If you feel that you cannot change, go into the Lobby against him."I feel sure, in view of the conclusions which I have reached, that I am acting in the best interests of all the people.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Oliver Poole: I support the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree (Mr. Raikes) to include all the approved societies and not only those of the friendly societies. I was very surprised at the speech made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) suggesting that this is only a matter of administration. I hope that in the colder light of today, compared with the heated atmosphere of last night, this problem will be properly considered. There is a very great deal in what was said by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) that if the friendly societies are included we must logically include the other approved societies. That is a logical point of view.
There are 21,000,000 people covered by the approved societies. If there has to be some agency to assist in the administration of this scheme it is obvious that they cannot be only the friendly societies. I am trying to make my position clear. If we cannot have all the approved societies, I would rather have the friendly

societies than none at all. The real crux of the matter is whether the administration that the Minister is to set up will be more efficient and cheap and more what the people want than the machinery now in existence. On that test alone this matter will be decided.
A great deal has been said on this point on the Second Reading and in Committee, and representations have been made to the Minister. I do not intend to weary the House by repeating it all. We must be clear, before we reject the Amendment, exactly what it means. Every Amendment, every Clause, resolves itself into a question of administration—the self-employed person's sickness benefit, for example. The most important and vital question is: How is the scheme to be administered? The Minister says he can in two years set up an organisation to train people and to administer the scheme that will be more efficient and humane than the system which the approved societies have built UP in 35 years. He may be right in thinking that he can. He cannot deny that that is the need with which we are faced, and I am bound to confess that I am extremely doubtful whether he will be able to do it.
I think the Minister will have very great difficulty in getting the people he wants. When we discussed the question of compensation, the right hon. Gentleman said he thought he could provide employment for all the ex-insurance agents I quite agree, but I think he will find that he will get only the second best insurance agents, because the best will remain with the life societies, and continue to do their work under the life offices. It is a matter of opinion, but I think it is obvious that a vast number of the best men will not leave the life offices. The question of the difficulty of using the approved societies can be considered only in the light of the difficulties the Minister will have in administering the scheme. The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring rightly referred to the difficulty of administering the scheme with only one stamp. The hon. Member has much greater knowledge of this than I have, but I feel that in any scheme which the right hon. Gentleman sets up, he will have great difficulty in administering sickness benefit and unemployment benefit with only one card and one stamp. That, however, remains to be seen.
The great objection which the Minister will put forward to using the approved societies will be that this is a compulsory scheme. He will say that it is not a voluntary scheme, but a compulsory scheme into which everybody has got to come, and that, therefore, he cannot delegate the responsibility for administration. That is entirely right. But all that we suggest in this very broad Clause is that the right hon. Gentleman should leave the way open to using the approved societies' organisation in any way that he likes, without delegating responsibility to them, in order to enable him to conduct the administration of the scheme. The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring said how very significant it was that the industrial approved societies had not been engaged in the same clamour as the friendly societies. I do not wish to misrepresent what the hon. Member said, but I think it is very remarkable that, simply because a group of officials or employees of the societies have not gone round the country stirring up enormous feeling, as has been done by the friendly societies, that should lay them open to adverse criticism in the House. I think everybody will agree that during the last 35 years the industrial life offices have done, through their approved societies, great work in administering the National Health Scheme. They are ready to continue to do so. The fact that they have not made great agitation should not be a cause for adverse criticism of them. I ask the Minister, at this late stage, to reconsider his position. If he cannot do so, I ask him to tell us how he intends to administer this scheme in the transitional period, and to what extent he intends to use the approved societies during that period; I ask him also to give us more details of how he intends to set up his own organisation and from where he intends to get the people he wants. If he rejects the new Clause, we are entitled to a full answer on those points today.

Sir Arthur Salter: I had not intended to speak in this Debate, since I expressed my views on this matter in the Second Reading Debate, and made a proposal very similar to that which is now under discussion. The principal reason I rise now is that an interjection by the Minister seems to me to have

thrown an important new light on our problem. Until this afternoon, I had assumed that the Minister, on coming into office, had been so overwhelmingly advised that the friendly societies could not be used, that he felt compelled to depart from the promises of which we have heard so much; but he has now told us that already, before he came into office, he took this line, so that it was when he, the future Minister, was holding the view which he has now expressed that the contrary promises were given and policies announced. In view of his statement, we need no longer assume, as I had previously been compelled to assume, that the whole of the advice that he has received since be came into office was against his use of the friendly societies.
Even when I made that assumption, I felt rather reluctant to accept the advice which I assumed had been given to him as being necessarily decisive. In view of the opinion of Sir William Beveridge, who has had enormous experience in this matter and was advised, when he wrote his report, by very able officials, and in view of my own experience of the approved societies at the time of the first National Insurance Act, I could not see why the Minister was obliged to take the line he was taking. Now that we have no longer to assume that he has had any such overwhelming advice overcoming his original intention, and he has told us that he has put into effect in office the intention he had before he came into office, I feel very much confirmed in the line taken by those who have advocated this proposal.
Where do we now stand? We are not asking the Minister to utilise all the friendly societies. We are not asking him to employ friendly societies under unreasonable conditions, without prescribing arrangements that he finds to be practicable and convenient. The Clause under discussion is not mandatory, but permissive. In all these circumstances, would it not really be a very much more honourable course for the Government to accept a permissive arrangement of this kind, and then, in the months ahead, to consider what friendly societies can be brought in, with advantage both to their own members and to the scheme as a whole, while still retaining the normal system for dealing with the benefits of all those members who cannot be conveniently arranged in that way. I appeal to


the Minister, and to many of his supporters who are not only anxious about pledges that have been given, but are seriously concerned in a decision of such importance to the great friendly societies of this country, to reconsider the proposal that is now before the House.

Mr. Proctor: I support the new Clause. We are considering a very serious matter. I have listened to the whole of the Debate on it, and I have yet to hear any valid reason why this new Clause could not be accepted. The National Insurance Scheme is a very great Measure, and I am sure that the names of all those associated with bringing it into operation will live in the history of this country. I want also to say that the organisations that have played some part in educating the people of this country up to the present stage are worthy of some consideration. Those organisations are the trade unions and the friendly societies. The trade unions have voluntarily given up any claim that they had to administer this Bill. The friendly societies are pleading; that they shall form a part of the administration. Let it be remembered that this problem was referred to a very able committee of investigation, that recommendations were made upon it, and that one recommendation which I am very sorry the Government have not proceeded with—the one proposal that might have settled the whole matter—was that the State should take over the whole of industrial insurance. That would have completed the job. I believe that it is still the duty of the Government to take over the whole of the industrial insurance in this country, to employ the whole of the staff, to rationalise the friendly societies, and to put the whole thing on a sound basis. That is the proper solution of this problem.
5.30 p.m.
I turn to the fact that the Government have decided that they could not do this. They have shut out the profit making societies and the friendly societies. We cannot escape the fact that during the General Election this thing was placed in front of us. We were asked:
If elected to Parliament will you support the friendly societies' claim to be retained as responsible agents of the Government in the new scheme of national insurance administration and sickness benefit? 
To that questionnaire, I answered, Yes."I answered fortified, as I

thought, by the support of the head office of my party. We have all to make our own judgment upon it. Let every man say that no man must break his word. That is the suggestion which for some extraordinary reason is put forward with great eloquence by hon. Members opposite. It is a new suggestion to come from that side of the House. I look back over the years and think what a pity it is that that was not carried out. There would have been no Munich, no war, no breaking of our word to Czechoslovakia and the other nations. We can go back further than that. There would have been no strike in 1926, no unemployment, and none of the terrible things from which we have suffered, if only hon. Members opposite had kept the Election promises which they gave to the people. It seems very strange to hear a lecture on broken promises from hon. Members opposite. I take the view that every man must answer for himself. Every man is the custodian of his own conscience in this matter.
It is not right for me to stand on a platform and say, "I promise you this, or that "To a section of the community, and then to come here and attempt to carry out that promise if I am convinced that it is wrong in the national interest. I have to be convinced that it is wrong. On this issue I am not so convinced; I am convinced that it is right. It is right for me to carry out that pledge and to appeal to the Government to accept this Clause, and to review this matter and to look into the thing very carefully. There is no Member of this House whom I hold in higher esteem than the Minister of National Insurance. I believe he is perfectly honest in the advice which he is tendering to the House of Commons. Every Member must weigh very carefully the advice which he gives. I appeal to him to have another look at this. After all, we do not come to the House of Commons simply to sit down and to follow this or that Whip. We come here to express an opinion, and, if possible. to influence the Government in the direction in which we want them to go. The Minister has suggested that there are three ways in which this scheme might be administered. He has accepted three means—through the Post Office, by a visiting officer, or by a social security office. I submit that he can easily work in the friendly societies without com-


plicating his accountancy or experiencing any great difficulties in administration.
I ask him in all sincerity to look at this problem very carefully. Much has been said in this Debate by the representatives of the workers about the differentiation in benefit. No one has said more on that topic outside this House than I have myself. That is not an issue this afternoon. There is no question of any hon. Member asking the Government to pay a different set of benefits as between one person and another. All the statements which have been made on that point are entirely extraneous to the subject under discussion. This is purely a question of administration. When I have visited a house carrying benefit to a member, I have never had any experience that he felt resentment when he saw me. My only difficulty was to get away in order to carry on my other work. I do not think an argument that there will be resentment because someone visits a house is valid. I believe that if this Clause is carried and the Government review their scheme they will find they can easily bring in the friendly societies in order to carry out this administrative job. If a man falls sick and he is in a friendly society it pays him a substantial sum as sickness benefit. He is the only person that we are asking should come within the orbit of the friendly societies.
Is there anything beyond the administrative genius of the British race to say that one officer cannot do two jobs? This must be looked at from a national point of view. Could not the friendly society man do the two jobs? From an economic point of view, I would point out that the Minister sends two people to a house. Quite candidly, I believe that we could settle this thing amicably by adopting this Clause. I do not think the scheme would suffer seriously. It is not an easy task to stand up and say what I have said. I have said it only as a result of the most careful consideration and thought. As some of my hon. Friends know, I would have much preferred to have dealt with this in another way elsewhere; but when I approached the Minister of National Insurance he said, "It is for the House of Commons."I must play my part in the House of Commons, because there is no other way in which I can express my opinion and carry out my responsibility. I appeal to

the Minister most sincerely. This is a permissive Clause. I do not want to hide behind that and throw the responsibility on to the Minister. If the House passes this Clause, there will be a heavy responsibility on the Minister to carry it into effect if he possibly can.

Mr. W. J. Brown: The issues which come before the House of Commons divide themselves into three categories—the practical, the political, and the moral. From time to time, a question comes to us which involves all three. It seems to me that we are dealing with such a question today. There is involved in this, first, the practical issue. Is it desirable and workable to bring the friendly societies into the administration of this scheme? That is the practical issue. Secondly, there is the issue of whether we ought to be restrained from voting on what we conceive to be the merits of this case by reference to the effect of that vote on the fate of the Government. Thirdly, there is the issue of how far the elected representatives of the people are at liberty to go back, at the behest of the Government, on pledges made by them to their constituents. I should like to say a few words on each of those three issues.
So far as the first and practical one is concerned, we have to ask whether it is desirable and workable to bring the friendly societies in. I think that, first, it is desirable, and, secondly, that it is practicable. I think that it is desirable, and not merely to preserve the friendly societies, although the mover of the new Clause, in a compelling speech yesterday, indeed made out a very good case on merits for preserving the friendly societies. There is, indeed, a considerable case, because they are a peculiarly English institution, they have a great history, and they have done good work for the people of this country. But I think the real reason is even deeper than that, and it is this. Every time we extend the functions of the State, we must take ever greater precautions to ensure that, at the point of contact between the State and the individual, we have something warm and personal, and not something cold and official. I know the poor folk of this country, and I know that you cannot put a poor man or woman from a back street into a big public building, looking across a table at a public servant, without


putting him or her immediately at a disadvantage He imagines the State to be a vast mechanism which is largely inimical to him, and, in any case, coldly impersonal towards him.
He feels about the State as I feel whenever I see a policeman. Whenever I see a policeman—[Laughter.]—I never believe it is necessary to be solemn in order to be serious, and I do not want to be unduly solemn now, but, whenever I see a policeman, I wonder what I have done, even though I know I have not. That is a relic of my boyhood days, when, if a policeman came down the street, it meant trouble for somebody. It meant either that Mr. Whitehead at No. 53 had been drunk and disorderly and had been run in, or that somebody was being summoned for rate arrears, or that the boys at No. 33 had been up to their tricks again. It always signified trouble, and, immediately I see a "copper," This impression of my youth springs in my bosom, and I wonder what I have done, even though I know I have not.
I am not arguing against the State taking over this job. I am a strong supporter of the Bill, I think it will mark a milestone of tremendous significance in the development of social security in Britain, and I envy the Minister the great privilege of being able to introduce this Bill. On the Bill, he has my full support and heartiest commendation. But, every time we are compelled by the necessities of life to expand the fields of the State, we must take the utmost care that, at the point of contact between the State and the individual, we have the most human, the least impersonal, and the warmest and least official contact that we can possibly devise. So the answer to the first question is "Yes. It is desirable."
Next, I ask "Is it practicable?" Sir William Beveridge says it is. The Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) says it is. And I say it is. These three alone would be enough for me, but, presumably, there are 196 other hon. Members of this House who also hold it to be practicable and workable, otherwise they would not have signed the pledge which we are now discussing. There are enough brains in the public service—brains which have solved vastly more difficult problems than this one, such as problems connected with many of

the war operations—to find a way of solving this problem.
5.45 p.m.
The second issue is political. I hold that, whenever we go into the Lobbies of this House, although we vote on hundreds of things during the year, under our present set-up we actually only vote on one thing all the time, and that is whether the Government should stay or go. We are never free to vote on the merits of a case, because, if the Government are defeated on some minor aspect of some minor Bill, which may be only one of hundreds of Bills dealt with in the course of a Parliament, the Government have been defeated and, according to our tradition, must resign. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."'] Governments have been defeated in this House on comparatively minor things, and have had to go out in consequence. [Interruption.] I agree that there have been others. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Education Bill."] Well, they were beaten by one vote in a Coalition Parliament and under abnormal wartime circumstances. We ought not willingly to accept that tradition that the Government has got to go merely because it is beaten upon one aspect of its policy. I think the Government should only be dismissed by a straightforward Motion of Censure by this House, and, if that were the case, we would have freedom to vote on the merits of all other issues that come before the House, without feeling that we are throwing out a Government which many of us want to sustain in existence. That is the political issue, and there are bad boys on both sides. Every Government has retained that set-up because it gives the best disciplinary weapon for ensuring that hon. Members go into the desired Lobby.

Sir A. Salter: May I suggest that, supposing the Government were beaten on this issue, they would not be obliged to resign? They would certainly take the view of the House as to their general confidence and remain in office.

Mr. Bowles: Surely, it is only on a Motion of lack of confidence or on a denial of Supply that a Government is constitutionally bound to resign?

Mr. Brown: I am either right or wrong, and, in either event, I am right. If it be the case that the Government would not have to go out, then everybody will be free to vote according to his conscience.


If it be the case that it would have to resign, we would have to ask ourselves how much longer we are to be subjected to political blackmail, from whatever quarter it comes. So whether I am right or wrong on that, I am right.
The third issue is the moral issue. [Interruption.] I never mind interruptions, but I do like them to be audible; otherwise, it cramps my style in replying to them. I come now, I say, to the third issue, the moral one, and, to my way of thinking, this is the simple fundamental issue. If a man gives a pledge to another man, or body of men, he is in honour bound to carry out that pledge, unless it is physically impossible for him to do so. If it becomes physically impossible for him to do so, then he is bound to try to seek release from the obligation. But there are two things which he is not entitled to do. One is to deny the obligation, and the second is to misrepresent the character of the obligation. These two things are excluded, in my submission, from an honest man's conspectus of his duty in carrying out the pledge. Any man who does not observe these fundamentals, and who votes for what he knows to be wrong or against what he knows to be right, does three things. Firstly, he dies a little in his own soul every time he does it. Secondly, he hurts even the party he is trying to help. And, thirdly, he does deep damage to the prospects of Parliamentary democracy in Britain, and to the faith of the common people in the word of their representatives. He does those three things when he votes against his conscience.

Mr. Tiffany: May I ask the hon. Member whether that morality applied in the case of the 1929 Government?

Mr. Brown: I cannot speak for all the hon. Members in that Parliament, but I can speak for my part in it, and older hon. Members in this House will know what I said in the 1929 Parliament. I spoke and voted as I thought right, and got into some considerable spots of trouble because I did so. It might almost be said that I was permanently "on the carpet," until I decided to get out on to the " lino." I know that the Minister will not take anything that I have said as being directed against himself personally. I admire him, and think he is doing a

great work. I approve his Bill, but, on this issue, I think he is wrong, and I must vote against him, although, as I have said, I hope he will not regard that as anything personal. There is enough bitterness in politics to admit of a little kindness now and again. If hon. Members think that I have established the three points which I have tried to make this afternoon, I urge them to go solidly into the Lobby in support of the new Clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for North Hackney (Mr. Goodrich).

Mr. Dairies: During the few minutes that I intend to speak, I want to try to bring this Debate back to the fundamental question of administration. I must confess that when I listened to the Debate last night, I felt that it was a prolonged session of soul saving which was in progress rather than a serious discussion of what is still fundamentally an administrative problem. The reference of the right hon. Gentleman the Senior Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) to the Minister seemed to convey to me that it was due to the Minister having made up his mind that this situation has arisen. I wan*, to call the attention of hon. Members on the other side of the House to the fact that this question was not only dealt with in the Beveridge Report, but was also exhaustively dealt with in the Coalition White Paper. I have searched through the Debates of that period and I cannot find that any of the hon. Members who have had so much to say in this Debate raised their voices in protest against the decisions made during that period.

Mr. O. Poole: If the hon. Member will refer to the proceedings in Committee, he will see there a speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) relating the Coalition White Paper to the Amendment.

Mr. Daines: I think there is some truth in that, as far as the Committee is concerned, but I am dealing with the White Paper. The logical case—and I put this particularly to my own colleagues—from the standpoint of administration, has been put by the hon. Member for Wavertree (Mr. Raikes) and the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Poole). This is the case the Minister will have to face if there is to be a redirection of policy. The major criticism I have to offer against that


scheme, as well as against the friendly society scheme, is that if we continue to operate the approved society scheme it means, of necessity, that the operation of this great scheme of insurance is going to be continued as a sideshow to other existing insurances. That is fundamentally what has happened so far as insurance offices are concerned and it will happen in the case of friendly societies.
I listened with great interest to the moral exhortation which came from the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and the impression he conveyed to me, judging it purely on what he said, was that the Government propose to abolish, or take steps to abolish, the friendly societies themselves. There is no suggestion at all that the future or the actual existence of the friendly societies is at stake. It is rather difficult, judging from the Amendment, to know exactly what is proposed in the friendly society scheme. Is it proposed that the present set up should continue and that 200 friendly societies should operate in one small town? I am told by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Clause that they have a rationalised scheme which gets over that difficulty. Let us examine, point by point, what are the actual differences when we reduce it to the case of the friendly societies as against the industrial societies. It is all very well saying that we dislike industrial insurance or the profit motives which are there. The hon. Member for Wavertree can tell the House that in actual fact there is no profit motive in many of the large insurance corporations of this country and that, from the standpoint of effective or non-effective democracy, the same test could be equally applied, for example, to the Liverpool Victoria as to the Hearts of Oak. Take the standpoint of service. Can it really be claimed that the service of the friendly societies was better than that given by the approved societies of the industrial offices? As to the question of additional benefits, while some friendly societies of a highly specialised, selective type can produce a higher rate of benefit, nevertheless, taking an overall picture, there is no substantial difference between the additional benefits of the two.
The main point of objection is that industrial insurance offices have deliberately used their approved society sections for the purpose of securing industrial insur-

ance business. That is the argument. Let us apply the facts. I will take the Prudential Assurance Company, which is the most highly organised and, in many ways, the most efficient from the standpoint of expense ratio, of industrial offices and has probably the largest and, I believe, the most efficient approved society in service, in membership, or what you will. It is a fact that, from the standpoint of new business produced in industrial insurance against debit, the Co-operative Insurance Society, which does not operate State business, shows a substantially higher increase. I challenge anybody to disprove that fact. That is evidence which can be obtained quite easily from the handbook of the insurance industry. Where, then, is the argument that the industrial insurance agents of approved societies are using their approved society sections for the purpose of procuring industrial insurance business? I will tell the House quite frankly where the insurance agent really uses it. It is certainly an advantage to an industrial insurance agent when he pays the maternity benefit because he has the advantage of issuing a policy on the baby's life.
6.0 p.m.
If the Government make the mistake of accepting the friendly societies, the industrial insurance offices can take the objections point by point, and can say that under this head the Bill will prevent life assurance being issued on the children on the occasion of maternity claims. There is no logical case, although there may be a case of prejudice, against the approved societies or the industrial offices once we admit the friendly societies in as well. If we let the friendly societies in on this issue, the inevitable consequence will be that we cannot resist the case for letting in the industrial offices either.
I now turn to what is one of the major actuarial objections to this scheme which, I take it, is the proposed rationalised scheme issued by the friendly societies. It is fundamental in an insurance scheme that there must be a continual flow of new entrants into the scheme in order that it shall live. The friendly societies lay down as a condition of membership of their section that the person shall also have voluntary membership as well. Where are the new entrants coming from? The new entrants into the friendly societies


scheme, or any other scheme, can only come from the 16 to 18 year olds. The youngster of 16, therefore, faces the position that he has to pay a contribution of 2S. 8d. to the State scheme plus 2d. for industrial insurance. Is it to be imagined that that same youngster will then be prepared to pay 6d., 8d. or 10d., in order to join the voluntary section of the friendly societies? It is all very well for the friendly societies to boast of their rationalised scheme. I submit that it is actuarially quite unsound and one that cannot possibly exist.
My final word is on what I think is the real problem. I say sincerely that the real problem that is shown in this piece of legislation is one which appears right through the whole of the major Bills which this House tackles. It is comparatively easy to force Bills through the Lobby; it is comparatively easy to settle points by debate. The real problem of this Parliament and of this Government is the creation of administration that is human, flexible and efficient. I suggest that the Minister has to absorb into his administration all that is best of the friendly societies' system. From my life time's experience of insurance, I say that it will be a fatal mistake if good administration is sacrificed to cheap political clamour. Now is the day of the new beginning when the new scheme can be truly born.

Mr. Eden: I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) that the level of this Debate, which has now gone on for a number of hours, has been exceptionally high. Indeed, I think it is almost always so when there is a subject upon which Members feel deeply and about which they are sincerely perplexed. I ask the Minister to believe that I shall not seek to make any of my observations from the point of view of party advantage, but I shall try to sum up what I believe are the sentiments of a number of Members in all parts of the House. Many of the speeches to which we have listened have been remarkable in their quality, and I hope I shall not unduly embarrass the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Lang) or the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) when I say that I was greatly impressed by their speeches.
No Member in any part of the House denies the importance of the issue which we have to decide tonight. We are here presented with, and the Minister has had to consider anxiously for some months, a human problem affecting the daily lives of many millions of people. We are all agreed that the predominant aim must be the convenience and comfort of those millions. On the one side, we have the Government with the administrative plan —and I agree that it is essentially a problem of administration—neatly perfected with all the virtues of a good administrative plan, and with some of the faults of a neat administrative plan. On the other hand, the House has listened to speeches from hon. Members who have argued that appropriate use could and should be made of the great experience and organisation of our historic friendly societies.
It is not at all surprising that this issue, which involves the individual happiness and future of great domestic institutions, should cut across party lines. Indeed, I think our Parliamentary life would be a good deal poorer if it did not. I say sincerely that I am not insensible of the Minister's difficulties in this matter. He has upon his shoulders the burden of welding together into a new administrative machine the main structures of a number of schemes, which in the past have all been largely independent and have all done good service within their limits. But will he know, as others with administrative experience also know, that in administrative matters paper schemes, however admirably devised, do not always stand up to practical tests? I know that the Minister is anxious, and rightly so, that this new insurance scheme which he has the great good fortune to father, and in which we wish him all success, shall come into force smoothly and swiftly.
Let me say first of all where I believe there is common ground between us all. First, in the administration of the scheme it is agreed that we must seek only for the convenience and comfort of the insured persons, and more especially of those who are sick. Our machinery of administration, therefore, must be efficient in its handling of cases, swift in its payment of benefits, and helpful to the beneficiary in making payments in the way that he or she desires. Second, whatever the future may hold as a result of the vote which the House has to take to-


night, we can all join in paying tribute to the services of the friendly societies in the past. On those two points we are agreed. In the last 30 years, through their approved societies, they have helped to build up a system of health insurance which is the envy of many less happy lands, and without their efforts the Minister would not now be in a position to take this new step forward with the same ease and assurance as he is doing today.
I am not sure about the ease at the moment, but that will come later on. Moreover, these friendly societies are far older than National Health Insurance. In some cases for more than a century they have provided a channel of voluntary thrift, carried out through self-governing institutions, and, as we know from hon. Members who have spoken in the last two days, they have been the training ground for democracy, so characteristic of British voluntary institutions. There again we still agree.
I now come to the third point on which I hope we agree. None of us regard this Bill as the last word in providing social security. No national scheme—I do not care how good it is—can completely meet the needs of 28 million contributors. None of us want to see the virtues of thrift entirely supplemented by a compulsory levy. On the contrary, we all wish to see this scheme supplemented by voluntary insurance on the widest possible scale. Therefore, on all these matters I do not think there is any disagreement. Before I pass to the points on which I think we do disagree I want to draw the attention of the House for a moment to the wording of the proposed new Clause, which seems to me to be couched in the widest possible terms. It simply enables the Minister to use the friendly societies as he may consider necessary and desirable. It leaves open to the Minister to have the fullest discussion of the terms and conditions upon which the societies shall be brought into the scheme. I cannot conceive of a Clause more essentially permissive than that. I draw the attention of the House to this point because I think it meets a number of the difficulties which I observe were put forward in the debates in Committee upstairs, difficulties which I have no doubt are in the mind of the Minister.
It is said, for example, as one hon. Member said a while back, that the societies cannot be used as agents because

they give unequal benefits for equal contributions. We all know now that in reply to that the societies have already conceded that these unequal benefits for equal contributions must cease; that Government supervision of the administration of public money must be strict, and that financial assets which have arisen from National Health Insurance must be transferred to a central fund. Therefore, that particular difficulty is now a nonexistent difficulty. It has been said by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary upstairs that the number of societies is too large, and that the membership of some of them too scattered.
I am aware, and so is the House, that in respect of that the friendly societies put certain proposals before the Minister, which he found unsatisfactory. I have read the correspondence which passed, and I am bound to say the grounds of his dissatisfaction do not appear to have been altogether clear to the friendly societies, nor, I confess, after reading the correspondence, are they altogether clear to me. It may be that we shall have a little more elucidation on that point when the Minister comes to reply. However that may be on that particular issue, I do not suppose that those proposals of the friendly societies are necessarily the last word.
6.15 p.m.
If that were the only difficulty, I have not the slightest doubt that it could be overcome by patience and good will in negotiation. AH these questions, of the size and the shape of the societies, are clearly matters for detailed discussion. I cannot believe that the Minister would base his objection upon details of that kind.
I think there is no doubt—and I hope I am putting the case fairly—that the Minister's main objection to using the friendly societies is that he feels he will be operating a unified scheme which must. in his view, have a unified administration, united in one central office with a uniform system of local offices. That is what I think he wants. I would say to the Minister, let him not be led away in this by verbal logic which is attractive on paper but does not always give the best service in practice. He is a member of a very distinguished race, whose gifts we humble Englishmen have often admired. I have always thought that the greatest


gift of his race was the gift of imagination, and I would have thought that the last inhabitant of these islands who would stand upon rigid administrative correctitude was someone who represented a part of the British Isles made celebrated recently by the right hon. Gentleman the former Member for Caernarvon Boroughs. Let the right hon. Gentleman be true, if I may say so, to his racial traditions and to what I believe are his own instincts, and do not let him be troubled by administrative correctitude, otherwise he will disappoint himself and us.
It is quite obvious that under this new Bill a number of schemes which were formerly separate schemes have to be brought into relation. There is no dispute about that. There will be one card, and there will be one stamp. We agree with that. But because the money is to come in through one channel it does not follow that it should be paid out through only one channel. I do not believe for a moment that the Minister proposes to do that at all. I suppose he will go on paying pensions through the Post Office, as they are being paid today; he will go on paying unemployment benefit through the employment exchanges, as it is being paid today. In fact, for the payment of pensions and unemployment benefit the Minister will use the channels of the existing scheme. Why then, I ask him, cannot he use the existing channel for sickness benefit, too? Why not adapt the existing channels for the payment of new benefits, as, for instance, the death grant? The Minister has never denied that he cannot begin to put the new scheme into operation without the help of the friendly societies. I think that is accepted. It is common ground that we wish voluntary insurance to continue and to prosper. Does the Minister really think that in those conditions he will get the keenest and best officials of the friendly societies at a given date to transfer their services to him?
Surely the Minister cannot reasonably ask the friendly societies to carry out an extensive reorganisation, as they have to do, and an expansion of their work to fit into his administrative plans, if a large part of that work is to disappear within two or three years. If the Minister is prepared, as I understand he is, to ask the friendly societies to administer sickness

benefit during the transitional period, why can he not carry on the experiment a little longer? Why not see if these very old and, in every sense of the word, popular institutions can be adapted to the needs of the present day? That, after all, is the usual practice of the British people —English, Welsh and Scots alike. Those are the questions that the Minister, if he will allow me to say so, has to answer and which so far, despite my reading of the Committee stage, do not seem to me to have been satisfactorily answered in the discussions of this Bill. Before I conclude, one word on other and more delicate matters—on the pledges. Here I walk like Agag.

Mr. Bowles: Betore the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, may I ask him if he did not support the Coalition Government's White Paper? Did hi not support the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) in the last Parliament? Why does he come to the conclusion to which he has now come?

Mr. Eden: I am infinitely obliged to the hon. Gentleman. That is the point I have arrived at. Before walking into questions of other people's pledges, I was just going to deal with my own sticky past. It is a good practice, on such occasions, to look behind one first. I am not pretending— and I hope nothing that I have said has pretended—that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of National Insurance has not an immensely difficult administrative problem in this. Of course, he has. There is no dispute whatever about it. [An HON. MEMBER: "What was Conservative policy? "] I was about to tell the House about it. The hon. Gentleman is so anxious to recount my past. I have got it here. Let us look at it, because it is not only the party opposite that issues little bits of instructions at General Election time. I sympathise with something that the right hon. Gentleman said about the flood of questionnaires at Election tune. It is very troublesome. In times gone by I used to find it more vexatious than I do now, when I have achieved the attitude of consigning them to their proper place. One has to watch this matter, and I, therefore, charge myself and my memory as to what we said about this in the Election and of our attitude in the White Paper. I will read two paragraphs which, I think, not un-


fairly state the position and the Minister's real problem. Having described the position we say:
 Another alternative is to use them simply as paying agents. This, also, would involve duplication of administrative arrangements and will present further difficulties, including payments of claims "—
I make the right hon. Gentleman a present of all that, and of the next sentence, too:
There would obviously be great difficulty in retaining as agents for this purpose those approved societies which are not carried on in conjunction with other activities.
Then we go on—and this is the answer that I hope my hon. Friends gave without any slip by any young man:
 None the less, this is a possibility which, in spite of its disadvantages "—
and they are admitted—
The Government will be right to examine further, if there is a clear desire by insured persons that they should do so.
That is our position, and I do not think it is an unfair or unreasonable position. Curiously enough, it comes extraordinarily near to this Clause. I hardly dare suggest that the hon. Gentleman had a sight of this before he put it down,, but it is close to our own.
Having said something about ourselves, realising the difficulties, I turn now to the pledges in general, with special relation to the decision we have to take tonight. I have been a Member of this House for some few years, and I know it is a difficult business, and a very disagreeable business, to differ at times from one's own colleagues or to take a different view from one's own leaders. It is extremely uncomfortable and altogether disagreeable. But it is an old tradition of this House that those who are Private Members, who do not hold Office, are not committed in the same way as those who sit on the Government Bench. Sometimes, on the Government Bench, one has to make up one's mind whether to agree always with one's Government colleagues, or not. That is also disagreeable. But as a back bencher one is not so rigidly bound to accept the discipline of one's leaders, to the extent that one cannot obey private conscience. This is not new doctrine: it is very good old doctrine. It is one of the features of our life. It is one of the things that has enabled our democratic institutions to meet the sudden changes of a moving world.
There are three courses—and I will try to put them fairly—which seem to me

to be open to hon. Members who have given a pledge in respect of this issue. They can, if they think fit, write off the pledge as having been made by mistake, on account of a slip of Transport House, made in the heat of a General Election, by what is called, I think, "an inexperienced young man." Here let me say that no inexperienced young man should have been put into such a position as to enable him to make such a slip. Moreover—and I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me on this—in the same way as a Minister takes full responsibility far any decision of his subordinates and does not even refer to it—I have known Cabinet Ministers come here to the House and take the blame for something they had not done and the House has not known that it had been done by a junior official—I think that, in the same way, if a party sends out documents in a General Election the leaders of the party-have to take responsibility for the documents. I do not think it is fair to talk about the young man. At any rate, I am not interested in him, and I do not think that hoi. Members ought to be interested in him in deciding their vote tonight.
I come to the second course. It will be perfectly fair, I think, for an hon. Member to say, "I gave that view at the time of the General Election—." [An HON. MEMBER: "A promise."] A promise, yes. I am putting it as low as I can. I say that it would be perfectly fair for an hon. Member to say, "I gave that view at the time of the General Election and expressed myself in that way because I thought that it was right; but since then I have heard arguments which were not known to me then, and I am reviewing my position."If hon. Members say that—and I have not heard an awful lot of that—but if that is the line that hon. Members take, then it is their duty to go to their constituents and tell them so and get their verdict on their change of view. That is open to hon. Members, and of those who take that course I should have no complaint. The third course is that, having said something, one should simply stick to it. That is not a bad plan.
One final word to the Minister. Hon. Members talk about the effect on the life of the Government. Of course, I have no control over the life of the Government. It is something that goes on irrespective of anything I say or do.


[Interruption.] I thought that would be comforting to hon. Gentlemen. I am not endorsing the request made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery that the Government should take the Whips off tonight. I am not doing that because I think that if I did they would be less likely to be taken off, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman, that if ever there was a case in the life of this present Parliament or, indeed, in the life of many Parliaments, where a Minister should listen to the voice of hon. Members, to the feelings of this House, then this is one of them. All that he is asked to do is to take a Clause into his Bill which gives him a permissive power. He is asked to do it by the House. I think it can truly be said that, if they could freely express their opinion, that is the view of the majority of his own supporters. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I can only express an opinion. Very well, then, I will say, of a large proportion of his own party. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] What did that 199 mean, then? Nothing? Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. Have all the 199 changed their minds? Let us put it this way—I want to get agreement of a large proportion of the right hon. Gentleman's own party as expressed when they appealed to the electorate, and, also, by a considerable proportion of the rest of the House. That is the feeling. The right hon. Gentleman is a democrat. He comes from a country which instinctively believes in democracy. I ask him to accept a democratic verdict, and to accept this Clause tonight.

6.30 p.m.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): We have had a long and interesting Debate on this very important question. When the matter was considered in Standing Committee, I indicated that I desired to give the fullest opportunity for a full discussion on this matter. We gave two days to this subject, and in the end, by common consent, we felt that the subject had been completely covered, that every point of view had had the fullest opportunity of finding expression, and that we were ready to come to a decision. I am glad that last night and again today we have had a full opportunity to discuss this matter. May I begin by saying something which struck me last night and today in this

Debate? Since the Prime Minister gave me the very great privilege of becoming Minister of National Insurance, I have had to pilot a very important Bill, which has now passed its Third Reading and is in another place.—the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill. This Bill is now reaching its final stage. At every stage in the consideration of both these Measures, I have indicated to my colleagues in the House that I regard the spirit and method in which these Bills are administered to be one of the prime considerations which I ought to bear in mind.
Let me, therefore, express my disappointment that when we came to discuss the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill, the administration of which is far more difficult, far more complex, and far more human than this problem, there was an empty House. I leave that without further comment. When we considered that very great Measure we had a very thin House. In this Debate of last last night and today we have had quite a number of speeches, and I join in paying tribute to their sincerity. Last night the Debate became rather irrelevant, all kinds of issues being brought into the discussion, and there was a danger, from which to some extent we have recovered, of seeing this issue clouded and befogged by all kinds of considerations, creating an atmosphere, in which in the full consideration of all the issues involved, the House might have come to a wrong conclusion. It is many years since this question was first discussed in this House, when my great compatriot, to whom reference has been made, and to whose work I pay tribute, admitted the friendly societies into the administration of the first National Health Insurance Act. If what I have read and what I have been told is true, it began with the determination to include them and to exclude everyone else. They half-opened the door, and the door was then pushed wide open, and that system of administering sickness benefits under the National Health Insurance Act by approved societies began.
That system, which has continued ever since, is unfair and inequitable and has now been roundly condemned by every Member in this House, and by everyone outside. Therefore, what we have to do today, is not to consider whether the old


system of approved societies in its present form should be continued or not, but what should be the system of administration incorporated in this Bill, and in this very great scheme which will affect vitally the lives and the well being not only of 8,000,000 people who are members of the friendly societies, but all the 28,000,000 people who will become contributors to this scheme, and the millions of men, women and children who will be dependent upon them. Let me say from the outset what I regard as the test in this matter. The test is not what is best for me as Minister, nor what is best or most convenient for my Department, nor is it what is best for the approved societies or the friendly societies. The real test is what is the best kind of administration for the people who will depend upon this administration. I began with that, and it is the test which I have applied all the way through. The real question is what is the best system of administration for the people who will be vitally affected by this scheme.
I began with this consideration, which is very important. The task which confronts me in 1946, is different from the task which confronted my compatriot 30 odd years ago, when he brought forward his scheme which provided sickness benefit, and one or two other allied benefits, for a limited portion of the community. He was able to delegate the whole of the administration of the scheme to the approved societies, and that is where it has remained ever since. I think it will be accepted all round, that this time it will be impossible for me to delegate the whole of the task of administering this scheme to any outside body. I have to create an administrative machine, and the whole administration in order that this scheme shall come into operation. Already, in the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill, I am committed to create machinery of that kind. Therefore, I cannot delegate.
The second question which arises, and is strictly relevant to the discussion, is whether we ought to delegate the administration of part of the benefit for part of the people covered by this scheme. The problem of whether we should admit the friendly societies was given consideration in the context of the new Bill and the new scheme. It was considered first by Sir William Beveridge. In his Report, he came to the conclusion that was

essential, in a scheme of this kind, to have one unified system of administration, a single Ministry, a single Department, being an essential corollary for a scheme which abolished all the separate schemes, and brought them into one unified scheme, with one card, one stamp and one contribution. He began by emphasising in his Report that one unified system of administration was essential. Ever since the Report was published, in 1942, I have taken part in every Debate on this question of social insurance. He suggested, in his Report, that we ought to make one exception, and that the exception should be that of the friendly societies. I want to recall to the House that when Sir William Beveridge made that suggestion and that proposal, he did not suggest, neither did he recommend, that friendly societies should be brought in unconditionally. He laid down certain definite conditions to which he attached great importance, and he laid it down that no society which could not meet these conditions should be admitted into the administration of the scheme.
I want to deal with this point in some little detail, because it is relevant to what has been raised by some Members of my own Party, as well as by Members on the other side of the House. I do not want to refer to all the conditions that were laid down by Sir William Beveridge in his Report. I want to refer to two only— the most important. The first was that no friendly society should be invited or permitted to become even an agent for paying the benefits under the new scheme, unless they were able from their own resources, on the voluntary side, to pay substantial sickness benefits. The reason why he laid down that condition was that it was essential for good administration — for correct administration—in order to give the right incentive that no societies should be allowed to pay out public money unless, at the same time, they were using money for which they were themselves responsible. That is the first test. The second test was that no society should be admitted which worked for profit. I began, therefore, to apply the test of the last condition—that no society shall be admitted which works for profit. That means that all the approved societies associated with the insurance companies are excluded on that ground; and that means—and I want the House to realise this—that if you carry this new Clause


now, you are telling 9 million members of the approved societies, as from now, that they cannot belong to those societies. Nine million members belong to approved societies associated with insurance companies—and they go out. They will have to come over to this cold State machine, because we will have excluded the societies to which they belong now; because they are approved societies connected with organisations which work for profit.
As to the condition that no society would be admitted unless it paid substantial sickness benefit from its own funds, I have examined that very carefully, and let me tell the House what it means. It will exclude practically all the small approved societies and small friendly societies in this country, which are the only ones which have the human touch to which reference has been made. All that will be left will be the big centralised societies—as remote as any Government machine; sometimes even remoter. In Lancashire, as elsewhere, there are large numbers of these small societies, with local contacts, which have grown up in the areas and out of the conditions of the people themselves; with close associations and friendly contacts, and by that test all the societies go out, because they are small, and because, generally speaking, they are in the old industrial districts, and their membership is drawn from men and women working in arduous industries, whose toil involves a considerable incidence of sickness—-and they are just the kind of society that will fail by the test of being able to pay substantial sickness benefit. The friendly societies which will meet this test have nothing like a membership of eight million. I would put it at no more than five million, if that.
Consequently, in the three or four million that will go out by this test will be included the societies that have, in my view, the closest contact with the people in their homes; and we will be left with only the great centralised societies, many of them without branches, many of them just agents for collecting and paying, with no real contact with the people at all. For those reasons, I came to the conclusion—and the Government came to the conclusion—that we could not accept, either the friendly societies as a whole or accept any outside

body as an agency, but we must proceed ourselves to establish our own unified system of administration, which will be essential to the carrying out of this scheme.
We have listened to very interesting speeches in the course of this Debate, and in Committee. That leads me to say that the most interesting speeches from the other side of the House are those that have not been made. (An HON, MEMBER: "We have not had time.") I am obliged to the acting Leader of the Opposition for the speech which he made just now, and its good spirit, good humour and good argument. I was interested to see that he was winding up for the Opposition. We have been considering this Bill for months. We had 16 or 17 days in Committee, since the Second Reading, and right through Committee, and up to an hour or so ago, all the speeches on this Bill that have come from the other side have come from the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) and the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake). Why have they stopped now? Because tonight, apparently, and particularly last night, of one of the things which the Opposition had been trying not to discuss in this issue. They think that it is a good stick with which to beat the Labour Government later on. Therefore, they have not asked the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden or the right hon. Gentleman the Member far North Leeds to speak.
6.45 p.m.
I am going to refer, first of all, to the consideration that was given to this matter by the Coalition Government and to the conclusions they came to; and I want to ask the House to consider them particularly. I want to direct the attention of the House to the conclusions arrived at by the right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they had the responsibility which is now in my hands. They have no right, therefore, to speak irresponsibly now when they took another view when they were in office. I want, if I may, to quote from the White Paper submitted to this House of Commons in the Debate in November, 1944, when I sat on the other side of the House—the White Paper on "Social Insurance, Part 1," paragraphs 162 and 165. And I want hon. Members to listen with very great care, not


to my words, but the words of the right hon. Gentlemen who are sitting opposite, and who will shortly have to vote. This is what they said in 1944. I begin by quoting from Paragraph 162:
The Government fully recognises the value of the services rendered by Approved Societies in the development of the National Health Insurance scheme, and they have given the most careful and sympathetic consideration to the possibility of retaining the services of the Societies in some form in the administration of the new scheme.
They have given the matter mature consideration. The Beveridge Report was published in 1942, and the White Paper in 1944—so they have given it two years' consideration. The Debate on the Beveridge Report took place in this House in February, 1943, and the White Paper was issued in the autumn, 1944. So it is not a rash decision. It is a mature decision arrived at after very careful thought. This is the position:
In the result, therefore, that they have been reluctantly forced to the conclusion that it is not practicable to retain Approved Societies as agents on any basis, and the only sound course is to administer benefits solely through the Social Insurance Department.
I speak with great frankness, on a matter of very great importance. Here, we get a touch of political irresponsibility.
In 1944, we are told on the authority of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the scheme was examined carefully, sympathetically, from every angle, with every desire to help, and the Government arrived at the mature conclusion that it was unsound. They submitted it to the House of Commons, and not only that, but they submitted a Resolution at the same time asking the House to approve the conclusion arrived at. A vote was given in this House of Commons, with right hon. Members opposite voting in favour. I voted for it myself. We talk about pledges and votes. Are hon. Members opposite going to run away from the conclusion of 1944? Look at the conclusion arrived at in the White Paper.
The only sound course is to administer benefits solely through the Social Insurance Department.
One of the great responsibilities which the Government, the House and I, as Minister, have, is—and I have given anxious thought to it every day, for I am worried about it—that we are asking for increased contributions from all contributors for better benefits. I shall ask

workers all over the country, including mine workers, steel workers and farm workers, to contribute 4s. 11d. per week towards this scheme. As a result of the decision arrived at by this House last night in response to my request, I am going to ask the self-employed to pay 6s. 2d. to come in under this scheme. There was great anxiety at first about the size of the contribution by the self-employed, and there was great anxiety that there should be good administration when we ask people to pay such high contributions. Now we are being asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen with him on the Front Bench opposite to tell these men and women who have contributed these high rates that the administration of this money will be done in a way which the House has already condemned as unsound. I put that point quite frankly. These gentlemen cry, "Come and give us your 5s. and 6s., and we propose to entrust the administration of your money to a system which, after careful, sympathetic and wide consideration, we came, to the conclusion was unsound."It should also be remembered that we are asking the employers for increased contributions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, on behalf of the nation, will make substantial contributions out of public money towards this scheme. Are we now being asked to entrust the money of the workers and the employers as well as public money to a system which every right hon. Gentleman opposite has condemned as being unsound? I say quite frankly that in this matter that is political irresponsibility which I hope this House will reject.
Time is going on and I should like to make one more observation. I think I am entitled to quote from the Debate which was held in 1944. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the pledge in 1945?"] I am coming to that. I will not run away from it. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden spoke on 3rd November, 1944, for the Government, for the right hon. Gentlemen who occupy the Front Opposition Bench tonight and for many of my colleagues who sat with him and who are now standing by the 1944 decision. This is what the right hon. Gentleman said:
The decision that the services of approved societies should not be used, was


reached after that mature consideration promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Debate on the 16th February, 1943.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time was the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson).
He then feared there was only one answer to the question, ' Could the approved society system be retained in the present form?" And his answer was in the negative. The question is whether we would have been able to fit them in any other way? We have considered this matter from every angle, and the Government are convinced that it is impossible, within the new unified scheme, to use the societies administering … the National Health Insurance … scheme."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1944;.Vol. 404, c. 1118.]

Mr. R. A. Butler:: The right hon. Gentleman might quote me accurately. I said:
…within the unified scheme, to use societies administering only the National Health Insurance part of the scheme.
I wonder would the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to look later on in the speech, and see what I said at the bottom of column 1120:
The real difficulty of' the use of the friendly societies is that we cannot use agents for one aspect of a unified scheme.
I adhere to that view I went on to say:
 What we can do is to give utmost consideration in continuity of policy in continuing the personal touch by the use of as many agents of the friendly societies as we can manage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1944; Vol. 404, c. 1120–1.]
The right hon. Gentleman has been good enough to quote me, and I would remind him that when we debated this matter for two days in the Standing Committee, I drew his attention to Appendix II of the White Paper, which he did not quote in his speech, and to Sub-paragraph (5) in Appendix II, which is:
If the alternative plan were adopted of allowing societies to be mere paying agents without being responsible….
—which is now all that is suggested and to which my main speech was directed when I spoke in the Coalition Government, because it should not be forgotten that all we are considering now is permissive powers as to the use of these paying agents, and this aspect of the Appendix, published by the Coalition Government, was the basis of a speech which I made in the Committee upstairs without being challenged by the right hon. Gentleman but rather being thanked by him for my

contribution. If I might read the whole of the quotation:
If the alternative plan were adopted of allowing societies to be mere paying agents, without being responsible for controlling claims, there would be no case for retaining the conditions set out in paragraph 2 above, or for excluding any particular type of society.
Those are the very conditions to which the Minister devoted the greater part of his speech.

Mr. Griffiths: I do not object at all, indeed I am very glad to give way to the right hon. Gentleman in order that he might make his point. It is true we considered this matter in a cooler and calmer frame of mind in the Committee, but that was because we did not have in the Committee what we have had for the last two days, an attempt to befoul and befog the issue. We did not there have the attempt made by the Conservative Party to make capital out of this, and it is because of that that I am entitled to quote these things. I will go on quoting:
This new plan involves many benefits beside the National Health portion of the scheme. It is, in fact, unified; and what does that mean? It means that there will be a single stamp on a single document, involving unified administration of health, unemployment and pensions, and the scheme for death grant. They are all to be the responsibility of a single Minister. It means the setting up of a register of insured persons and the maintenance of records of contributions. Therefore, it seems clear to us that the central machinery should operate in regard to all benefits, and that one class, that is health, should not be handed over to another agency. In fact, economy and efficiency point to the wisdom of administering all benefits directly through agencies run from a central point."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1944; Vol 404, c. 1118/9.]

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Butler: I did not depart from a word of that in Committee, and I do not depart from it now. What I say is that we want the administration to be central. All we are suggesting is that in view of the situation that has arisen in all parts of the House about the friendly societies the Minister should have permissive power to use the agents of them in a centrally administered and controlled scheme.

Mr. Griffiths: All I will say about a permissive scheme is that, as a Minister, and on behalf of my colleagues, I beg this House not to "pass the buck "In that way. I made up my mind that it


was my duty to establish a single unit. My colleagues in the Government and I arrived at that conclusion and it would, therefore, be wrong and dishonest of me to tell the House now to give me permissive power.
What are the reasons which compelled me to arrive at this decision? I did not come to this conclusion because I am unfriendly to the friendly societies, or because I do not appreciate the work they have done, are doing, and will do. The circumstances of my life have thrown me into closer contact with the trade unions than with friendly societies, and I know that the trade unions have done a good job in this respect, that they have a history and traditions equal to those of any friendly society in the country. I speak as a trade unionist with many years' experience, and when I discussed this matter thoroughly with my friends in the trade unions and friendly societies they agreed unanimously to accept the scheme as we have drafted it, and to work for its success. From the beginning, I thought that in this scheme, which is a unified scheme, bringing in virtually the whole of the population, to cover people for almost every kind of adversity, unified administration was essential, not only on the grounds of administrative efficiency, but on the grounds of convenience.
What happens now? I referred, earlier, to the fact that there is now on its way to the Statute Book the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill, which we will have to administer. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown I agreed to hand over, without a murmur or a protest, to the cold State machine, men and women injured in industry. Believe me, the administration of sickness benefit is child's play compared with administering benefit to injured men and women. We decided that the whole administration of industrial insurance should be entrusted to an administration created by the Minister. There will be cases in which there will be dispute as to whether the accident is one for which injury benefit ought to be paid. Because of that dispute the poor chap concerned has to try and get sickness benefit, or public assistance, or both. He is chased about from one place to another. What people want under this new administration is one place, accessible to their home, to which they can go for guidance, for help with their

claims, whatever they may be—claims for sickness, injury, widowhood, old age or death. They want to go to a place where a decision will be made quickly, instead of having to go from one place to another, looking for the right person to administer the right benefit.
By our scheme, we propose to establish a network of local offices. I want to make these offices worthy of the great task which lies before them, great community centres to which people can go, staffed, it is true, by people who will become civil servants. On that point, I should bate to think that there was any Member on my side of the House who accepted the view that if a person works for the State he becomes cold and bureaucratic.

Mr. Keeling: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the Minister is constantly turning his back on you, which makes it difficult for us to hear him?

Mr. Griffiths: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, if I was in any way discourteous. I am sure no one would charge me with deliberately being discourteous. I was merely turning to my hon. Friends behind me, as I think I was entitled to do. I was referring to the fact that we shall have a unified administration, and a network of local offices, in which men and women will be employed by the State, and I was rejecting the idea that anyone employed by the State will become cold and bureaucratic, will become a "copper," To be feared by the sick, the maimed and the injured. It will be our aim and purpose to establish an administration that will be discriminate—and I emphasise the word, "discriminate." If there is one system of administration that needs to be discriminate, it is what is called, "home service." Home service can be something other than service; it can become the means by which the dignity of a worker is reduced and destroyed. I want the service to be discriminate, to be humane, to arrive at quick decisions, and to be accessible to the people. I believe that that will be the case. If the House votes as I ask it to vote, we shall set about that task. We shall invite he cooperation of the approved societies. In fact, they are now discussing with us how their staffs can be absorbed into the administration of our scheme.
I have thought about this matter long and earnestly, and my colleagues in the Government have also given it their fullest consideration. Since I became a Minister, I have met deputations from all those who are now engaged in this great work. I have met representatives of the friendly societies on many occasions, the last being on Monday night when I met my hon. Friend the Member for North Hackney (Mr. Goodrich) and his colleagues from the National Conference of Friendly Societies. They put a last proposal to me, which I took to my colleagues in the Government. We gave it the fullest consideration, but we rejected it for the same reason that we rejected all other proposals, namely, that it would involve the breaking up of the unity of the scheme— which I regard as one of its essential features. That is why, from the very beginning, I have resisted pressure and, although I do not complain, there has been both pressure and lobbying. I have been asked by hon. Members on all sides of the House to change my view about this and to try to persuade the Government to change theirs. I have been pressed and am still being pressed on many of the provisions in this Bill. I have listened to all the suggestions which have been made and have given them careful consideration, and although I have made changes in the Bill where I could, some I have had reluctantly to refuse to make. There is one thing which I have not changed from the beginning. After listening to the Debate last night and today I am more convinced than ever before that I am doing the right

thing in advising the House, as I am advising it now, not to break up the unity of this scheme but to permit us to build the kind of organisation I want, which we want, and which I am sure is the right one in the interests of the people.

One last word about the pledge. I have never asked any hon. Member in any part of the House, or any colleague, to treat a pledge lightly. I said that in the Committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "They should not."] I agree, they should not. What I ask the House to do now is to judge this case on its merits, examine it in the light of the discussion and to give attention and consideration to what I have said, weighing it against what has been said by others. Believe me, my colleagues in the Government and I, with years of experience in this field and of handling administrative problems of this kind, have come to the conclusion that this is the right thing to do. I believe an hon. Member is entitled to change his mind. As a trade union officer, before coming to this House, I did it myself where I was convinced that it was the right thing to do. I did it on the merits of a case, and then said that I had looked at it and was certain that if I did what I had originally promised to do I would be doing the wrong thing for the scheme and the people. I am convinced that that is the choice now and I invite hon. Members on all sides of the House to join us in the Lobby.

Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 184; Noes. 279.

Division No. 183.
AYES.
7.11 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Carson, E.
Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L


Allighan, Garry
Challen, C.
Fletcher, W. (Bury)


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.
Clarke, Col. R. S.
Fox, Sqn.-Ldr. Sir G.


Astor, Hon. M.
Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G
Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)


Baldwin, A. E.
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)


Barlow, Sir J.
Cooper-Key, E. M.
Gage, Lt.-Col. C.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Gales, Maj. E E.


Beechman, N. A.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E
George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)


Bennett, Sir P.
Crowder, Capt. J. F. E
Glossop, C. W. H


Birch, Nigel
Cuthbert, W. N.
Giyn, Sir R.


Boothby, R.
Davidson, Viscountess
Granville, E. (Eye)


Bossom, A. C
Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Gridley, Sir A


Bowen, R.
De la Bère, R.
Grimston, R. V


Bower, N.
Digby, Maj. S. W.
Gruffyd, Prof. W. J.


Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)


Braithwaite, Lt. Comdr. J. G.
Donnor, Sqn-Ldr. P. W
Hare, Lt.-Col. Hn. J H. (Wdb'ge)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W
Drayson, G. B.
Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Drewe, C.
Head, Brig. A. H.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G- T.
Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C


Bullock, Capt. M.
Duthie, W. S.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Burden, T. W.
Eccles, D. M.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Edelman, M.
Hollis, M. C.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)
Eden. Rt. Hon. A.
Holmes, Sir J. Stanley (Harwich)


Byers, Lt.-Col. F.
Erroll, F. J
Hope, Lord J.




Horabin, T. L
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Howard, Hon. A.
Marples A. E.
Ropner, Col. L.


Hudson, Rt Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Ross, Sir R,


Hulbert, Wing-Cdr N. J.
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Hurd, A.
Maude, J. C.
Sanderson Sir F


Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'orgh W.)
Medlicott, F.
Scott, Lord W.


Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Mellor, Sir J.
Shepherd, W S. (Bucklow)


Jarvis, Sir J.
Molson, A. H. E.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Jeffreys, General Sir G
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir T.
Snadden, W. M.


Jennings, R.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)
Spence, H. R.


Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O


Keeling, E. H.
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Kendall, W. D.
Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C. E.
Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)


Kenyan, C.
Neven-Spence, Sir B
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Lambert, Hon. G.
Nicholson, G.
Studholme, H. G.


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Nield, B. (Chester)
Sutclifle, H.


Langford-Holt, J.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Swingier, S.


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Osborne, C.
Teeling, William


Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Paget, R, T.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Lindsay, M. (Solihull)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)


Linstead, H. N.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Lipson, D. L.
Pickthorn, K
Touche, G. C.


Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Pitman, I. J.
Turton, R. H.


Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Poole, O. B. S, (Oswestry)
Vane, W. M T.


Lucas, Major Sir J.
Prescott, Stanley
Wadsworth, G.


Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Lyttelten, Rt. Hon. O.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.
Walker-Smith, D.


MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.
Proctor, W. T.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


MacDonald, Sir M. (Inverness)
Raikes, H. V.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Macdonald, Capt. Sir P. (I. of Wight)
Ramsay, Maj. S
Wheatley, Colonel M. J.


Mackeson, Lt. Col, H. R.
Rayner, Brig. R.
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Maclay, Hon, J. S.
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Maclean, Brig. F. H. R (Lancaster)
Renton, D.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


MacLeod, Capt. J.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)
York, C


Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)



Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.




Mr. Goodrich and Mr. Lang




NOES.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Cocks, F. S
Gibson, C. W.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Coldrick, W
Gilzean, A.


Allen, Scholefield (Crew[...])
Collick, P.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)


Attewell, H. C
Colman, Miss G. M
Gooch, E. G.


Attlee, Rt. Hon C R
Comyns, Dr L.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.


Awbery, S. S.
Cook, T F.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)


Ayles, W. H
Corbet, Mrs F K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Corlett, Dr. J.
Greenfell, D. R.


Bacon, Miss A.
Cove, W. G.
Grey, C. F.


Balfour, A.
Crawley, Flt.-Lieut. A.
Grierson, E.


Barnes, Rt. Ho A. J.
Crossman, R. H. S
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)


Barstow, P
Daggar G.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)


Barton, C
Daines, P.
Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)


Battley, J. R.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Guy, W. H.


Bechervaise, A. E
Davies Edward (Burslem)
Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)


Belcher, J. W.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hale, Leslie


Bellenger, F. J.
Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, SW)
Hall, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Aberdare)


Benson, G.
Deer, G.
Hall, W. G. (Coins Valley)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.


Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsw'th, C.)
Delargy, Captain H. J
Hannan, W. (Maryhill)


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Diamond, J.
Hardman, D. R.


Binns, J.
Dobbie, W.
Hardy, E. A.


Blackburn, A. R.
Dodds, N. N.
Harrison, J.


Blenkinsop, Capt. A.
Donovan, T.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville


Blyton, W. R.
Douglas, F. C. R.
Henderson, A, (Kingswinford)


Bottomley, A. G.
Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Holman, P.


Bowdon, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Durbin, E. F M.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Dye, S.
House, G.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Hubbard, T.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Brown, George (Belper)
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Hughes, Lt. H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Hutchinson, H, L. (Rusholme)


Buchanan, G.
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)


Burke, W A.
Ewart, R.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)


Callaghan, James
Fairhurst, F.
Irving, W. J.


Callaghan, James
Farthing, W. J
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Follick, M.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)


Champion, A. J
Forman, J. C.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (SI. Pancras, SE.)


Chater, D.
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)


Chetwynd, Capt. G R
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)


C[...]lherow, Dr. R
Gaitskell, H. T. N.
Keenan, W.


Cluse, W. S
Ganl[...]y, Mrs. C. S.
Key, C. W.


Cobb, F. A.
Gibbins, J.








King, E. M.
O'Brien, T.
Symonds, Maj. A. L.


Kinghorn, Sqn.- Ldr. E.
Oldfield, W. H.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Kinley, J.
Oliver, G. H.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Kirby, B. V,
Orbach, M.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Lavers, S.
Parker, J.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)


Lawson, Rt, Hon. J. J.
Parkin, Fit.-Lieut. B. T
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Lee, F. (Hulme)
Pearson, A.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Peart, Capt. T. F.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Leonard, W.
Perrins, W.
Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Ed'b'gh, E.)


Leslie, J. R
Platts-Mills, J. F. F.
Thorncycroft, H. (Clayton)


Levy, B. W,
Popplewell, E.
Thurtle, E.


Lindgren, G. S.
Porter, E. (Warrington)
Tiffany, S.


Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)
Price, M. Philips
Titterington, M. F


Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Pritt, D. N.
Tolley, L.


Logan, D. G.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G


Lyne, A. W.
Ranger, J.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


McEntee, V. La T
Reid, T. (Swindon)
Usborne, Henry


McGhee, H. G.
Richards, R.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


McGovern, J.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Viant, S. P.


Hack, J. D.
Robens, A.
Walkden, E.


McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Walker, G. H.


McKinlay, A. S.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


McLeavy, F
Royle, C.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Macsherson, T. (Romford)
Sargood, R.
Warbey, W. N.


Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Scollan, T
Watson, W. M.


Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Scott-Elliot, W.
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Marquand, H. A.
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A.
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J


Martin, J. H.
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Mayhew, C. P
Shawcross, Sir H. (St. Helens)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Medland, H. M.
Shurmer, P.
Wigg, Col. G. E.


Middleton, Mrs. L.
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Wilkes, Maj. L.


Mikardo, lan
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Mitchison, Maj. G. R.
Simmons, C. J.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Monslow, W.
Skeffington, A. M.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Montague, F.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Morley, R.
Smith, T. (Normanton)
Williamson, T.


Morris, Li.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)
Snow, Capt. J. W.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Morrison, Rt Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Solley, L. J.
Wilmot, Rt. Hon. J


Mort, D. L.
Sorensen, R. W.
Wise, Major F. J


Moyle, A.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F
Woodburn, A.


Mulvey, A
Sparks, J. A.
Woods, G. S.


Murray, J.D
Stamford, W
Yates, V. F.


Nally, W.
Steele, T.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Naylor, T. E.
Stephen, C.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Neal, H. (Claycross)
Stewert, Capt. Michael (Fulham, E.)
Zilliacus, K.


Niohol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Stokas, R. R.



Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Strachey, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Noel-Buxton, Lady
Stubbs, A. E
Mr. Joseph Henderson and




Mr. Collindridge


Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 12.—(Exhaustion of and requalification for benefit)

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Clone): I beg to move, in page 12, line 8. to leave out Clause 12.
The House has just decided a question which everybody agreed was not a question of principle but the political importance of which arose out of the fact that a great many Members had given pledges about it. My Amendment is entitled to the support, at any rate of Members on this side of the House, on the ground that to vote otherwise would be to vote against pledges which have been given for 20 years by every Labor Member of this House, pledges which have been given by the party as a party for a quarter of a century, and pledges which do not depend in the least upon a casual incident in the heat of a General Election, but are the direct result of a social experience and a social philosophy which lie at the basis

of this party's movement. This is more than a pledge. For the principle on which this Amendment depends the Government have a mandate. Our presence on these benches in such numbers is due more than to any other single cause, to the belief that the common people had that on this party and on this party alone they could rely to achieve a comprehensive social insurance that was complete. They believed that if they returned a Labor Government to power with an adequate majority they would secure, as of right, unconditionally, without a means test, freedom from want in adversity. That phrase, I think, was first coined in this House by the Lord Privy Seal, who, I regret to see, is not in his place in the House at this moment.
If my hon. Friends had any doubts upon the last Amendment because of any pledge that they gave, those doubts must have arisen out of the conflict between the


pledge they were misled into giving and the Tightness of the decision they had to make. That is the only thing that gave any political importance to the last Debate. But on this question there is no such conflict. Work or maintenance has been this party's attitude to and policy for unemployment relief ever since unemployment has been a social problem of any size in our community. If there were reasons which made it right to change our minds, I would agree. As my right hon. Friend said at the end of the last Debate, it is better to do the right thing no matter what pledges one has given, than to do the wrong thing merely because one has given pledges to do it.
7.30 p.m.
But is this the wrong thing? Is there anyone on the Government Front Bench who believes that work or full maintenance is a wrong principle? Is there anyone on the Front Bench who believes that if a man is genuinely unemployed, if his unemployment is due to no fault of his own, if the State can offer no employment, if his continued unemployment is due to some social or economic or industrial or political breakdown, then the consequences of that state of affairs should be borne by the unfortunate victim of them and not be borne by the community as a whole? If anybody on the Government Front Bench believes that, I would like to hear from him. Will the Minister for National Insurance say it? His whole political career, his political reputation, has been based on the contrary view, on the view for which I am pleading now.
I said yesterday that I could wish that some of the most influential Members of the Government were not for the moment Members of the Government. I would like to hear the Minister of Health pleading this case, I would like to hear one of the Under-Secretaries for Scotland pleading it better than anybody else in this House; they do it so much better. I heard a speech from the deputy Leader of the Opposition. I do not claim to be able to speak with the same experience or the same passion on these matters as they do; I have not the same personal experience of it as they have in South Wales and in Scotland and in other places, though I have some experience. Perhaps I am handicapped a little by my profession, which is apt to be a little suspect on these benches. I do not apologies for it, any more than I can

Help it; I do the best I can with such training and such experience as I have, but I can quite understand that "were I Brutus, and Brutus Antony,"Then indeed we might see a revolution, then indeed the Government might be led.
Let us look at the history of it. The position of this party has been quite clear for a generation. Sir William Beverage came to the same conclusion. Neither this party nor Sir William Beverage have thought it right to impose any limitation of time upon insurance for sickness or upon insurance for unemployment, none at all. What are the reasons advanced against this? I heard my right hon. Friend in Committee, I heard him in the House last night. He talked about how in the past the Unemployment Insurance Fund had had to stand financial strain which no insurance fund ought to be called upon to bear. How does that matter really stand? My right hon. Friend will start paying children's allowances under this Bill and another Act this autumn. My right hon. Friend will start paying the increased old age pensions under this Bill this autumn. I am not complaining of that; I congratulate him upon it. I have done my little best to induce him to speed it up, and I am not pretending for a moment that he was ever reluctant to do so, but out of what moneys will he pay this autumn? His new social insurance fund has not yet begun to collect contributions. I do not know when he will begin to collect contributions, but he will begin to pay next autumn the children and the old. Out of what funds?

Mr. J. Griffith: I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that family allowances are paid directly from the Exchequer and not paid from the fund at all. On the other hand, I thought I had made it clear to the Committee when they were considering this matter that, when the new pension rates begin to be paid in the autumn, the new contributions begin too.

Mr. S. Silverman: Yes, but if you begin to collect the contributions in the autumn and begin to pay the benefits in the autumn, then you are beginning to pay the benefits at the moment when you begin to collect the contributions, and, therefore, must be paying them for the moment out of some other moneys. Out of what other moneys? Let me tell the


House out of what other moneys Look at the Ninth schedule to the Bill, which deals with the social insurance funds that are being taken over by the Minister One of them is the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the surplus under the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1934. Does the House realise how much it is? The Minister talked about the fund being in debt to the extent of £7 million or £8 million. The foundation of the Social Insurance Fund under this Bill is the surplus of £ 400 million taken by the Minister from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
I have no doubt that that surplus has been built up under exceptional conditions. No doubt it has been built up under the full employment which war, and the preparation for war, provide. No doubt— at any rate we all hope— such exceptional conditions will not recur. I give my right hon. Friend the benefit of all those considerations, but this surplus of £400 million was built up under exceptional conditions. How was the deficit incurred? In the days when the Unemployment Insurance Fund had no surplus, when it was in debt, were those conditions then exceptional? Are we to say that long continued mass unemployment, such as brings a deficit on to a social insurance fund, is normal, whereas conditions that produce a surplus in unemployment insurance are exceptional? I am sure my right hon. Friend will not say that, because he says—I know he says, the Government say, as Beverage said, and as we all say—all this policy of social insurance depends on a number of assumptions, one of which is that mass unemployment over long terms shall not recur again.
All I am saying to the right hon. Gentleman is that he must not make too much of the charge which may fall upon the Social Insurance Fund if he does what Beverage and what this party have always stood for, and leaves the unemployment insurance benefit as unlimited in time as sickness benefit is unlimited in time. If he does that, let him not pretend that that will be a strain upon the Insurance Fund, because if he does that, he is begging the whole question; he is assuming that the very thing which lies at the basis of the solvency, not merely of unemployment insurance but of any kind of social insurance, is something that we cannot count upon,

namely the avoidance of long term unemployment in the future. But, suppose I am wrong about that. Indeed, Beverage faced up to this as the party faced up to it. Let us face up to the possibility—I do not want to put it higher than a possibility— that in spite of all the endeavors of the Government, and their new economic policy, in which I believe, there was to be long term unemployment so that the Social Insurance Fund could not be expected to bear it without increasing the weekly collectable premiums beyond a figure which it would be reasonable to expect the workers to pay. I can understand that. I can understand very well that the Social Insurance Fund on these present contributions, which ought not to be increased, ought not to be asked to bear the cost of long term mass unemployment. I can quite accept the reasonableness and prudence of the view that in some agreed period, it may well be 180 days, the cost of relieving unemployment should not be borne by the insurance fund, but should be borne by the Treasury. I think that is a perfectly fair point and a perfectly fair principle, and I understand that that is the Government's case.
What I do not understand is why they associate with that another principle with which it has no logical or reasonable connection. Why do they suppose that because the cost of unemployment insurance beyond a certain level should be borne by the Treasury and not by the Fund, therefore the man should lose his statutory right to benefit, and be entitled in one case to a discretionary power of the Ministry to pay him benefit and, in the other case, be cast on to the Assistance Board with all the social anomalies and evils that that involves? There is no connection between these two propositions.
Let the Government say if they will, "We do not wish to take away a man's statutory right to unemployment benefit so long as he remains genuinely unemployed, but we do not want that to be a charge beyond a certain point on the Social Insurance Fund."They will find no opposition to that on this side of the House. Do not let the Minister use the financial necessity or convenience of making part of the charge a charge on the Treasury instead of a charge on the Fund as an excuse for stopping the man's right to benefit at some arbitrary point


in time. There is no justification for it in social policy, and no justification for it in the attitude to these matters that this Party have always adopted, and they have no mandate to do anything of the kind.
I can understand another point—and this, perhaps, is one of greater difficulty. If the Government say that a man has been unemployed for six months or more in the place where he has always lived and in the calling which he has always followed, and if there are no special conditions covering the whole country to account for it, that raises a presumption that there is something peculiar or particular in the circumstances of that unemployed person which may have to be dealt with in a particular way. I do not dissent from the view that at such a time the Government may be entitled to say to the man, " You had better submit yourself to be trained for some other job, for which there is a greater demand."
I would go further than that and this is also a delicate and difficult point. I can even concede, with some reluctance, that it may be true sometimes that the difficulty does not arise out of the particular circumstances of the individual applicant, but out of the industrial conditions of the locality, and that the Government may in those circumstances be entitled to say to the man, " Go to some other locality."That is a great concession for anybody in the Labor Party to make. We have always taken the view that it is better to take the work to the man, than to take the man to the work. I am not concerned to deny to the Government that there may be exceptional circumstances in which it is right to say to the man, " We can give you employment elsewhere, we can give you employment in some other job, and therefore you ought to take it, rather than continue to be a charge on the Treasury or on the Social Insurance Fund beyond six months."The absolute right to benefit may become a conditional right to benefit. But still it is a right to benefit.

7.45 P.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I am trying to follow the very interesting argument of the hon. Member. He said that it was a concession which he and his friends would make on training. Do I understand that he would

make training a condition of continued benefit? Most of the training, unless in a specific place, before the war— and I speak as one who is a bit repentant— was eyewash.

Mr. Stephen: It is a condition.

Mr. Lindsay: It is a condition I know, but people were sent for training which was absolutely vague, and certainly in Scotland they said, " We are not going."I would like to know what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) means by training. Training for a specific job? It is a very difficult thing to define.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) need not waste many words in convincing me. Most of the provisions in this respect, as he reminded us in the course of his intervention, have always been eyewash. If there is a breakdown in economic conditions which causes mass unemployment, I do not believe that we can train engineers to become miners or miners to become engineers.

Mr. Lindsay: That is the dishonesty of the Beverage plan.

Mr. Silverman: I do not know whose dishonesty it is. Mass unemployment means a complete breakdown of the economic machine and it cannot be cured in that way. If the Government were to take the view that after a certain length of time the continuance of full benefit as a right might depend on certain conditions, I should be prepared to look very sympathetically at that proposition and, if the conditions were reasonable, to accept them. What I am not prepared to accept, and do not believe any hon. Member on this side of the House ought to be prepared to accept, is the arbitrary cutting off of the right to benefit in the first 180 days. The anomalies that would result need no description, and I certainly would not waste words trying to persuade the Minister about it. He knows it as well as I do. But with a Labor Government with an adequate working majority in this House, pledged for a generation to the principle of work or maintenance, elected to power because of their pledge to take from the shoulders of the people the fear of poverty and the fear of want in adversity— how is the


Minister going to justify introducing into this historic Measure of comprehensive National Insurance an arbitrary temporary principle cutting off unemployment benefit, and no other benefit, at an arbitrary point of time? It is a principle which has been recommended by no person, no party, no movement and no organization that has ever examined this problem at any time. The Coalition Government would not do it. They drew no distinction between sickness benefit and unemployment benefit. They were wrong, hopelessly wrong, they put a time limit on both.
My right hon. Friend at the end of the last Debate quoted a Debate in this House on the White Paper of 1944. I will not read quotations; I am quite sure he remembers his speech on that occasion as well as I do. When we sat on the benches opposite, and, for the first time following the formation of the Coalition Government, decided by a majority to vote against the Coalition Government, in which we were a partner, it was he who led us into the Lobby. Did he on that occasion say he was in favor of stopping statutory unemployment benefit after 180 days? From where does this principle come? Who originated it, who is responsible for it? Who has converted Members of the Government, after a lifetime of advocacy against this principle, to support it in the first Measure of comprehensive social insurance that has ever been passed by the House of Commons in this country?
I do not want to take up more of the time of the House. I feel that my remarks have perhaps been too long already. I do not want to embarrass the Government. They are doing better work than any Government in the history of this country. Already they have carried out more constructive social reform in the six, seven, or eight months that they have been in office than any other Government in the history of this country have done in two years. I do not lightly propose to divide— not the House, I do not expect any support from the other side— this party against the Government, but I feel we must do it. I feel that the time will come when, if this Clause remains part of this Bill, this party will regret it. I know that the Government are doing their best to prevent unemployment. They are not altogether succeeding. There is a lot

of unemployment in South Wales, in Liverpool and up and down the country, and many people have been unemployed for a period which is already approaching six months, I think the Government will overcome that. If it depended on this country alone there would be a chance within five years—

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): Under the Rules of Order the hon. Lady the Member for Dudes-ton (Mrs. Wills) is not entitled to read a newspaper in the House.

Mr. Silverman: If it depended on this country alone, there would be a reasonable chance of preventing mass unemployment for an indefinite period ever happening in our country again, but hon. Members know that it does not depend on us alone. We are tied up with world economics; we are tied up, by our own voluntary act, with the economics of another country. If there is an economic collapse in America, does anyone really think that the backwash of that will not affect the schemes of this Government? Does anybody think we can insure ourselves or isolate ourselves against economic collapse in the rest of the world? If it comes it will come at the very time when the period of the mandate of this Government is coming to an end. I beg of those who sit behind the Government, do not let it be possible, when that time comes, for an unemployed person to come to their door, and say, " You, the Labor Government, the Labor Party whom we trusted and put into power with an overwhelming majority, have treated us precisely as has every reactionary Government in the past."

Mrs. Castle: I beg to second the Amendment.
It was, of course, inevitable that the discussion on this Amendment should be overshadowed by the discussion we have had on the previous issue. I only wish that the matter we are now discussing were not graver than the one which has had so much attention and has been the subject of so much clam our. That was a point of administration. Here we are discussing a point of vital principle. I cannot help feeling that my right hon. Friend, in everything he has said on this issue, has been far less happy in dealing with


this much smaller opposition than he was on that earlier issue in fighting a large opposition. The reason, in my belief, is that his conscience was clear on the one. and his mind is uneasy on the other.
I listened last night, and earlier in Committee upstairs, to the Minister's arguments on Clause 12. I want to understand his mind on this issue, because I have great faith in his intentions and in his humanity, but I am afraid that the sort of arguments he has been using, rather devious and contradictory, show that he himself is not happy about this issue. He told us last night that it was his belief that very few of the men who were unemployed for a long time were anti-social, or unemployed through their own fault. That was point No. 1. On the other hand, he told us he was afraid that long term unemployment on a mass scale might sink this fund. That was point No. 2. But if there is to be that mass unemployment, and if only a few of the men who are unemployed are malingerers, we are faced with the situation that, on the Minister's own admission, the bulk of the long term unemployed will not be to blame for the condition in which they find themselves, and that that condition will be clue to the failure of State effort to provide them with the jobs they are longing to have. Yet these are the men, the victims of the breakdown of State policy, on whom my right hon. Friend is putting the onus of proving that they are entitled to benefit. In other words, they are assumed guilty of malingering until they have been before a tribunal and established their innocence— they alone, not unemployed men in general, but just the men whom we have argued are most to be pitied, because they are the men who want jobs, and have been out of work for such a long time.
My right hon. Friend last night tried to argue that these tribunals would be in the interests of the men themselves. If the tribunals go hand in hand with the taking away of the men's right to benefit, that is very hard to follow. I ask my right hon. Friend: If this procedure can help the men to find work, if, by the State busying itself in this matter and taking an interest in the individual case and looking into it, men can be found jobs that were not previously available for them, why is this procedure not to be used earlier when a man is unemployed? Why introduce it in this arbitrary way at the end of a quite arbitrary period?

Indeed, when we raised this matter in Committee, one of the Minister's strongest arguments for Clause 12, one of his proudest boasts, was that a large number of unemployed, as a result of his policy of added days, would not have to go before the tribunals He said that men could go on for many months without forfeiting their right to benefit. In.fact, he said:
This will mean that a person who:has been unemployed for 180 days and has been in work for five years previously can have a further 130 days, and therefore his benefit will be 180 days, plus the credit of 130 days which he is given on his record. If a man with a good record finds that his 180 days, plus his added days, carry him into a new benefit year, we start him again on the 180 days."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A; 7th March, 1046, col. 146.]
8.0 p.m.
As for the argument that these tribunals are necessary to prevent malingering and to help men to find jobs, the whole argument is exploded, if it is used as one of the justifications for Clause 12, if it is said that men who have a good record will escape the tribunal. Then the Minister says, " Oh, but in the case of the other men who do not escape the tribunal, they will come to no harm, because the tribunal is friendly."If the tribunal is really friendly to the unemployed and is helping them to find jobs, why does he refer to the beneficial result of the added days? We believe that the men want work, and we believe that the time to start helping them to find it is at the end of the first month, not at the end of six or even of 18 months. I suggest that when the Minister claims that he is protecting the fund from abuse, he is showing a quite outrageous recklessness in suggesting that, if a man has a good contribution record, he can go on for months without the State bothering to find him a job at all. If the State is going to find him a job, the whole excuse for the tribunal breaks down.
On this issue of unemployment we have always maintained that the two things should go hand in hand— and this is the spirit behind the Beverage Report, the spirit which we are accepting as being relevant to the payment of sickness benefit, namely that a man should not forfeit his benefit merely as a result of lapse of time. The benefit should be paid so long as the condition which gives rise to the need for it lasts. An essential part


of this new approach is that malingering should be stopped from the word " go." Nobody should have a free side on employment benefit if they do not need it, and if they do need it, then they should get it as long as the need lasts. In this Clause my right hon. Friend is reviving the old, bad spirit of dividing the unemployed into two categories and is perpetuating the assumption, which has always been part and parcel of the attitude of Conservative Governments, that long term unemployment is the man's own fault. I beg my right hon. Friend to consider this. If we are to get a real new spirit into this new scheme, a spirit of trust on the one hand and responsibility by those who are receiving benefit on the other, we are going the right way to kill it by this division, which is quite arbitrary and unjustifiable. I urge, therefore, that this Clause shall be taken back and that we shall thereby remove what is a most serious blot on this Bill.

Mr. Stephen: I wish to support this Amendment. I expressed some of my misgivings yesterday and tried to save a little from the wreck by appealing to the Minister, but, unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. Today we have this new opportunity of trying to get a little more clarity in regard to the position of the unemployed under this Bill. I noticed yesterday that the Minister insisted in his reply that this Bill was providing a special machinery to deal with the people who were not entitled to benefit because they were really anti-social and were not willing to work. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, if he is to reply, and if not perhaps he will put it to the Minister, to give us a specific answer to this question: What kind of test is to be applied under the new procedure to prove whether a person is willing to work or not?
One hon. Member said in our previous discussions that there are two conditions, first, capability and availability for work, and second, willingness to work. I should like a specific answer with regard to the test of willingness to work, because I believe there is the possibility of there being introduced into this new Measure what will practically be a repetition of the past unfortunate history with regard to unemployment. In the first place, the House is entitled to something far more specific as to the test of willingness to work, be-

cause I am confident that the big majority of this House will not agree to it if it is proposed to introduce any test other than the test of a real job—mind you, a real job—being offered to the man. I remember that formerly people were told at the employment exchanges, "There is a job at so-and-so, and will you take it? " And the man was not prepared to say right away, which put him off. It was later laid down specifically that it had to be a real job and that the man had to get a direction in writing from the exchange regarding taking up that employment. I hope, therefore, that the Parliamentary Secretary will make this point plain.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) made it perfectly plain that there could be no reason in the attitude of the Labour Party for allowing the worker to continue in unemployment benefit only up to an arbitrary point, as is contemplated in this Measure. I know that that is the present condition under the present insurance scheme, but I do not think that the Government are justified in saying, at a particular point in the history of the individual's unemployment, that at that point he ceases to come under the ordinary conditions and is to be put under special conditions because he has been unemployed for a certain period, It is quite illogical. I was also very much impressed by the remarks of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), whose speech put the Minister in a very difficult position. The new procedure is an order to do something for these poor people that have been unemployed for more than 180 days, plus the additional days. There is to be a tribunal to look into their cases. Practically in the same breath the Minister said that if somebody had been lucky, had a good industrial history and had to suffer much unemployment, he would be able to get the benefit of the new tribunal.
The Government cannot get away with that. I cannot see how they will do so. They are on the horns of a dilemma. They may be willing to do some fancy riding, but if they try trick riding in this matter it will be of very bad consequence to the working class movement in this country. I hope that even at this stage, in view of the obvious widespread misgivings among members of their own party, the Government will give an assurance that they will reconsider the position and try to meet what I am convinced is


the view point of the majority of the Labour Party. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne wondered why the Minister had adopted this procedure. From my experience of this question I think I understand the motives of the Government. Always, in the past, there came a period when a person in receipt of benefit ran out of benefit, and then had to get non-statutory benefit, uncovenanted benefit or extended benefit. Always, when the new period started, new conditions were imposed. The present Government seem to take it for granted that they must follow the old procedure in this respect. The question that poses itself to them is how they can come to the House of Commons and justify asking the Treasury to undertake the provision for unemployed people in those exceptional circumstances, unless by adopting new conditions other than those applying to persons receiving statutory benefit. The Parliamentary Secretary is evidently in agreement with me on that point.
The answer to that question is not to be found in the proposed procedure, but in the fact that the unemployed person is not responsible for his unemployment, which arises out of the economic circumstances prevailing. I remember what a relief it was to a past Minister of Labor when somebody discovered that unemployment was not due to the weakness of the National Government but to a " world blizzard."I remember how the phrase " world blizzard " swept across the House of Commons at that time. The present Parliamentary Secretary should have come to the House with confidence. He should have said: "We, knowing that unemployment is the outcome of economic conditions at home and in other countries, are not going to impose new conditions upon an unemployed person when it becomes necessary to give him extended benefit."

8.15 p.m

Lieut. - Commander Joynson-Hiks: I am trying to follow the argument of the hon. Member. Under the argument he is advancing, is there any reason why he should limit it to extended benefit? If unemployment is due to an international economic blizzard, is there any reason for insurance against it at all?

Mr. Stephen: The hon. and gallant Member has put a question to me, and

I would answer it. Unemployment is not something that is suitably dealt with by insurance. The Minister said in Committee that we were starting from the beginning, but we are not doing so. We have had unemployment insurance since 1912 and have repeatedly modified it. I have to proceed from that position. Now we have an unemployment insurance scheme in being, and as to the Minister's justification for keeping a certain amount of it—

Mr. S. Silverman: The hon. Member should bear in mind that under he Minister's own scheme payments under Clause 62 do not come out of the Employment Fund. They are an additional payment.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Lindgren): That is the point made by the hon. Member.

Mr. Stephen: I think I have answered the hon. and gallant Member for Chichester (Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks). The reason why unemployment should still be dealt with partly on the basis of insurance and partly as a responsibility of the Treasury is due to the history of the matter. I assure him that I regard it as something with which the Government might have dealt, but I am not specially worried about that. I am still trying to deal with this problem. The Government have no right to say to the individual who has suffered a long spell of unemployment that because of that longer spell he must be dealt with differently.
One answer that can be made is that which the Minister has already made when he said: "We are not doing it in a penalising fashion but for the benefit of the individual."The hon. Member for Blackburn pointed out that, if it is so beneficial, why should not the benefits be given also to the fellow with the additional 180 days and who gets carried on to a new benefit year? Why not treat all alike? They are not responsible for their unemployment. If they were, they would not get benefit. Why penalise them, as the Government are doing here? I hope that even at this late hour the Government will have a little sense in handling this question.
There is great feeling in the Labour Party about this matter; there are misgivings in the minds of the people in that


great movement. I appeal to the Government to take more thought on the matter, and to give us an assurance that they will reconsider the whole position with a view to putting the unemployed all on the same level with regard to work and maintenance. That is the old principle of the Labour movement, which was enunciated by the Member for the unemployed in the House of Commons, the late Mr. Keir Hardie, the great pioneer of the Labour movement. I appeal to the Government not to depend upon the fact that they have their party so well disciplined that they will be able to persuade a majority to go into the Lobby against the Amendment. The Minister has given way on various points in this Measure. The biggest thing he could do now would be to have a certain amount of consideration for the feelings of those of us who have fought on this for so many years. We do not want to see our struggle wrecked by a Government who have begun so well and who, we hope, will do great things for the working people.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I think it would be wise for me to intervene briefly at this stage in order that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), who moved the Amendment, may know where he stands in the struggle which is obviously before him this evening. My hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House do not desire to take any part in this family quarrel within the Labour movement. If the hon. Member sets about collecting his forces for the remainder of the evening, he will no doubt feel that we have not let him down at a later hour if we do not support him in the Lobby. It is only fair to him and to the Government, to enable them to compose themselves for the battle ahead of them, that they should know that they cannot rely on this side of the House for support in their struggle.
On the merits of the case, I would like to pay a tribute to the sincerity of the speeches that have been made. It is clear to anyone who has been in the House for a considerable time that this is an issue on which there has been, in certain minds a consistency throughout, and I think it is legitimate to say that, taking the history of the Labour movement, so far as I have studied it, those who have spoken in support of the Amend-

ment have a certain justification. On the other hand, the Government have framed Clause 12 as would have been expected by any of those who know the ordinary continuity of the unemployment law of this country. They are, in fact, continuing the present practice. In the Standing Committee, I and my hon. Friends did not challenge the Clause, and we do not propose to challenge it on the Report stage. We shall, however, listen with interest to the justification which the Minister gives in answer to his critics.
I must point out that the atmosphere created has been tense and severe. The hon. Gentleman, in moving the Amendment, referred to pledges given for a quarter of a century. We shall want to know the Minister's answer to and explanation of this serious charge. The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) does not want a return to the old bad spirit. Speaking from the confidential Bench just behind him, she regards her own Minister as being devious and contradictory, and she regards his policy as one of outrageous recklessness; and the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) regards the Minister as about to indulge in some trick riding. I can only sympathise with the Minister, as I feel certain that the speeches which are to follow will embellish those epithets and warm up the argument. It will be for us a most excellent experience to hear the answer which the Government propose to give.
As regards hon. and right hon. Members on this side, we are naturally most sympathetic to the claims of the unemployed. I would like here, in all sincerity, to pay a tribute to the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. I confess that, although I did not like her intemperate language last night which was directed in my direction, I considered the latter part of the wording of the Clause which I moved last night to have been so unsatisfactory from my point of view that I decided not to press the matter to any decision. We can but own up when we consider that a matter is unsatisfactory, and if the hon. Lady has been able to move me to give a concession to her, I think that the speeches of the hon. Member for Camlachie, the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, and the hon. Lady, must have some effect on the Government tonight.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am very grateful to the right hon. Member for Saffron


Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) for explaining where his party stands on this matter, but I am afraid I have not understood him. They voted against Clause 62 in the Standing Committee; so, presumably, they do not want that. They did not vote for what they called their constructive and statesmanlike alternative; so, presumably, they do not want that. They do not intend to vote against Clause 12, so, presumably, they do want that. Is it their position, then, that they want unemployment benefit to cease on the 181st day and to provide nothing after that?

Mr. Butler: What we want is something on the lines of the speech I made last night, namely, a constructive attitude towards unemployment. The attitude that we do not want is any return to public assistance or anything of that sort. We want a constructive attitude to unemployment, as was described by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, and which I outlined at some length last night, which involves the consideration of a man's case sympathetically, the use of all modern methods, psychological and otherwise, of finding out what is the best thing for him, and the creation of a positive policy of putting him in the best place, coupled with the extension of benefit in certain circumstances; and I agree that in the background, as the Government have it in the background, there will always have to be the Assistance Board to assist the man whose benefit is not extended. That is precisely the position of the Government, because in the event of their tribunals not affording the extended benefit, the man has to go to the Assistance Board; but I have accepted the position that we should not use the Assistance Board in the first place, as the Coalition Government did. Thus, we are all learning every day I hope the House will accept the fact that we on this side adopt an attitude of sympathy and understanding towards the unemployed, but we cannot engage any further in this family quarrel within the Labour movement.

Miss Jennie Lee: I am glad to see that my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance is just returning to his place on the Front Bench. No one grudges him a brief interlude, because he has had a strenuous day. At the same time, we are discussing Clause 12

in a very thin House, a fact which underlines a dilemma in which all of us find ourselves. It is impossible for any Member, whether on the Front Benches or the Back Benches, to give careful, considered judgments from nine o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock in the evening, and often very much later. I am deeply alarmed by this Clause. I shall await with great interest what the Minister has to say in reply to this Debate. I rather feel like an outsider who is intervening, not in a family quarrel, but in a Committee quarrel, since I am, I think, the first Member who has taken part in this discussion who was not a Member of the Standing Committee. There is so much work going on in the House that I am afraid most of us are orthodox members of our parties when it comes to matters we know nothing about, and are apt to become a shade intransigent when there is an issue on which we are really considering the details.
8.30 p.m.
As a Member who was not in the Standing Committee, I have carefully read the wording of Clause 12. I ask other Members of my party—hon. Members opposite are enjoying the situation, for the matter is not important to them, and it is for us—to read Clause 12. Have they read it? Have they made a considered judgment on it? I have read it, and on the wording, it is either meaningless or mischievous. Therefore, on either ground, unless the Minister has something to say which alters my point of view, I believe the Bill would be greatly improved by rejecting this Clause. No one is going to object to the case that, since this Bill is an insurance Measure, there must come a time when unemployment benefit must be paid directly by the Chancellor rather than from the insurance fund. There is no dispute at all about that; but what bedevils the entire issue is that at the end of six months, or in special circumstances seven or 10 months, when a change is made in the method of financing the unemployed person there should also be a change in the conditions that are laid down. Why should that be? The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) is saying, "I am doubtful whether he has a right to benefit at all."That is quite true. It may mean, since this is left at the discretion of the


Minister, that the unemployed person then has to go on public assistance.
What is behind all this? Are we not back to the old business of the Conservative Party who, in economic circumstances that never justified their point of view, insisted that if a man or woman was not lazy, he or she could find work? Are we not in danger of imposing punitive measures? We are all agreed that it is the exceptional person who is not prepared to accept work. If it is a case of a sub-standard person, the Public Assistance Board or a means test is going to be no deterrent at all. If a man or woman has been unemployed for six months, and has not been offered a reasonable job by an employment exchange, and punitive measures have to be imposed, they ought to be imposed on the Government and not on the unemployed person. I say frankly, not having been a Member of the Standing Committee, that I do not understand the wording of this Clause. I am alarmed by it. I repeat what I have already said, that, as I read this Clause, it looks as if it were a furtive effort to reintroduce some form of means test.
We have had a positive assurance from the Minister that there will be no means test. If there is to be no means test, I ask him to explain why he thinks his Bill is improved by the inclusion of this Clause. Unless we get from the Minister a more convincing statement than has yet been made, I hope that we, as a House of Commons, will face our responsibility. That responsibility is that we shall provide work, and that we shall make the conditions applicable equally to men and women who are unemployed for one day, week, or year. If the Labour Government are to stick to this simple and oft-repeated pledge, to be responsible for providing either work or maintenance, we certainly shall not introduce fears and punitive measures which are not justified. Within that framework, I can see no cause at all for refusing to delete this entire Clause from the Bill.

Mr. Norman Smith: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) made what I thought was a most significant statement when he obligingly told the House that in this Bill, and particularly in this Clause, there was evi-

dence of continuity of policy so far as the Labour Government were concerned in relation to their Conservative predecessors.
That is just my complaint. I have believed for many years, and still believe, that the Labour Party is on the side of the angels. Unfortunately, the Labour Party, like the party above the gangway on the opposite side of the House, is also on the side of the actuaries, and the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen)—who approached this question, as he always does, from a very warm and human point of view, which has led him, I think, to the right conclusions—gave, I thought, one unsatisfactory answer to a question of his own proposing. He asked why the Minister was doing this thing, which so many of us on this side deplore. I can only put it down to the extraordinary circumstance that this Labour Party persists in an attitude of superstitious credulity towards the calculations of actuaries. Let me make quite clear what I want to put over.
My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal once referred to pounds, shillings and pence as " meaningless symbols," a somewhat indiscreet statement for which he has often since been taken to task. And the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) mentioned the £400 million surplus in the Unemployment Fund, which is actually the working basis of this scheme. I submit that those 400 million pounds are in fact, meaningless symbols. Against each and every one of those pounds, nowhere in the world do there exist tangible, physical assets. The basis of this scheme is insurance, and, if insurance means anything, it means that I go short of consumer goods today in order that, in a certain eventuality later, I may consume goods in the time to come. The £400 million in the Unemployment Insurance Fund are meaningless symbols, because nowhere can anybody point to consumer goods in the shop windows which would not be in those windows today if contributors had not had to forgo consumption in the past.
I deplore this obsession of the Labour Party with the actuaries and with the calculations of finance. They remind me of Procrustes. Procrustes was a man who, a long time ago, kept an inn in which all the beds were of exactly the same length,


and if a tall person went to that inn of Procrustes and asked for a bed, he said, "I am sorry, you do not fit the bed; I must cut off your feet."If one was deficient in height, he said, "I am sorry you are not long enough; I must put you on the rack."In the end, he made everybody fit the beds, and the Minister of National Insurance, for whom I have very great personal affection, will, unfortunately, make his scheme fit these fantastic and superstitious calculations of the actuaries.
My hon Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne said that for 25 years we of this party had been preaching " work or maintenance."In my case, it is longer than that. I well remember, 39 years ago, standing on a soap box outside the Swindon locomotive works making a speech, and I look back upon that occasion with mingled shame and pride— shame because of my disgusting sartorial taste in combining blue overalls with a red tie, and pride because I had the foresight, even in 1907, to advocate work or maintenance. I have long since got past work or maintenance. [Laughter.] Of course, the House will understand that I am speaking not subjectively but objectively. I advocate a principle which is far better than that. I advocate the principle of the cultural heritage. Whatever may be the possible output of contemporary industry, most of it is due not to labour, still less to investment, but to the fact that generations of past knowledge and science have gone into contemporary production to make present-day output possible, and I contend that every one of us, merely because we are alive, is entitled to an income, and that is why I object to this Clause.
It is not mere academic stuff that we are debating. There is a danger that in the future there will again be mass unemployment. It is not merely a case of Socialist planning at home; we are unfortunately committed to certain external policies of which I will only say that there is an equation—free trade plus the gold standard equals mass unemployment. Because this is not an academic discussion, because mass unemployment may happen in the future, and because the whole trend of technology is to produce unemployment by transferring from the man to the machine the burden of production, I am going into the Lobby to-

night with my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne.

Mr. Charles Williams: The hon. Member for South Nottingham (Mr. N. Smith) will realise that it is due to no discourtesy on my part if I do not follow him into a discussion of the gold standard and things of that kind. I was moved by what the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) said, and with which I agree. I do not understand why this Clause is in the Bill at all. She put that aspect of the case very clearly indeed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler), who did not, I think, hear that speech, said that we were not taking part in this particular discussion. I am taking part in this discussion because I think that those of us who have listened to the speeches in this Debate have some right to know exactly were we are, so far as the Government are concerned, and what is going to happen. I was very interested, indeed, in the speech made by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) who seconded the Amendment. She spoke very well on the new spirit which is required to deal with unemployment In Britain. Her new spirit showed itself in many ways, and it was most interesting. I wish that many years ago I had had her technique in saying things about the devious mind of the Minister. Of course, those who have listened to the Minister know that he has an extremely devious mind on these matters, so devious that he is not prepared to remedy something which, as I understand it, goes right back on the pledges given at the Election.
I have had a good deal of trouble in this matter regarding the election, I have been asked " Will you support the Socialist Party and will you endorse the pledge of the Government of this country that now the war is over, there will be absolutely full employment? "I have said that there could not be full employment, and I do not believe that anyone can honestly say that there could be full employment for all time. That is the difference between myself and those throughout the whole country who voted against our party. If we are going to have full employment, if the Government believe that they can give full employment, what is the good of these regulations and of laying down in this Clause that after 180 days the benefit shall cease? I do not wonder,


that one or two hon. Members opposite seem to be very cross—indeed, as cross as I am—and feel so badly about it. I really believe that if the Government were able to do that, or thought they would be able to do it, that they would have shown more spirit than they have shown up to now.
I come to the second point, the question of unemployment benefit. The next thing I was asked was whether I would pledge myself, as all the Socialists have pledged themselves, that there would be no limit whatever to the benefit. As I understand it—and I think the speeches we have already heard from the Socialist Party will bear me out—there will be no limit of time for the unemployment benefit. I refused to give that pledge because I could not carry it out. I wonder whether hon. Members opposite would refuse to give a pledge of no limit, or whether they would vote for the Government in limiting the amount of time in which benefit could be given. I wonder how many hon. Members opposite led the electors to believe that there would be full employment, and no limit to unemployment benefit.
8.45 p.m.
For years I have listened to Members of the Socialist Party denouncing the means test. From everything we have heard tonight about this Clause, it would appear to impose something which, if it is not a means test in the usual sense, is so closely allied to it that I cannot see any difference. I would like to ask the Minister, with his devious mind, to explain exactly what is meant by this Clause. I do not think I am being unkind to the Minister, because his voung back bench P.P.S. referred to his devious mind. In any case, it is not my job to be kind to Ministers, and I have no intention of doing so, although I respect them, despite their devious minds. Several hon. Members opposite, whose views I respect— because they are just as entitled to their views, as I am entitled to mine—have criticised the Government which they have recently been elected to support, because they believe the Clause imposes a means test. That being so, is there any Member in this House, or anyone outside who has taken part in politics, who does not realise that every Socialist candidate for a very

long while has been pledged up to the hilt—

Mr. Tolley: May I ask, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, how much of this is relevant to the matter under discussion? The hon. Member is talking about the last General Election.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): Perhaps it would be as well if the hon. Member allowed me to decide what is relevant

Mr. Williams: The points that I am raising all come strictly within the scope of the Bill, although I have no intention of going on for any considerable length of time. During the General Election, we were told of three things which the Socialist Party would do. One was to provide full employment. But we do not need this Clause if we have full employment. The second was no limit to benefit. This Clause is absolute nonsense, unless we expect to have long periods of unemployment. The third is what is usually known as the means test. The Government may take no notice of what I say. After all, I speak for a small, weak and overburdened majority in this House. I, like, the hon. Member for Cannock, was not a Member of the Committee and I have the same difficulties in that respect as she has. I sympathise deeply with her, because I find it difficult to keep in touch with everything that has been done in Committee upstairs. When a Clause of this sort is inserted in the Bill, which seems to go against everything that we have been told would happen, then, just as the hon. Lady and others want to know what is the good of this Clause, so I want to know what in the world is the reason for it, in view of all the pledges given by the Government at the General Election.

Mrs. Braddock (Liverpool, Exchange): Had I needed any reason for supporting the opposition to this Clause I got it from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler), because he said that to him this was a continuation of policy. That is what we are afraid of. We are afraid that Clause 12 does continue the policy that has been adopted in unemployment benefit for so many years. I have been an employees' representative on tribunals that have had to deal with unemployed people in relation to various provisions in Statutes


which have been used by the Ministry of Labour from time to time, such as " genuinely seeking work," or whether a person is out of work through misconduct —various means used by the Ministry of Labour in an attempt to debar people from receiving unemployment benefit. In Liverpool, with its present unemployment figure of 25,000, we feel strongly on this Clause. I have had long experience of the unemployed in Liverpool. I have been in baton charges when the police of this country—particularly in Liverpool— have used batons upon unemployed, on people demonstrating against their poverty and against the application of Clauses such as that which we are discussing.
Our Government ought to have accepted the responsibility of saying that if they are not capable of offering employment to people, then it is their responsibility, as a Government, to see that those people continue to receive unemployment benefit at whatever scale happens to be fixed. The inclusion of Clause 12 means that other Clauses have to be included also. It means that some group of people has to decide whether a person is genuinely out of work. Whatever we may say to the contrary, and however many words we use in this respect, it is a question of whether a person is genuinely seeking work. We can hide in our Clause behind as many words as we like, but it always comes back to the question of whether a person is genuinely seeking work. That is the only basis upon which we can decide, under this Clause, whether a person is entitled to unemployment benefit or not. In this Debate I am speaking for the Amendment with very deep feeling, because I believe my party's future depends entirely upon the attitude we adopt towards the question of unemployment pay and unemployment generally. If a Division is called, I shall hate having to go into the Lobby against my party, but I shall do so, because of my long experience and knowledge of this whole position.
Our people were looking for something different, for some other approach to the question of unemployment pay and unemployment generally. I believe most sincerely—and I am certain a lot of hon Members on this side believe the same— that we are entitled to say that if we cannot find work for people it is the responsibility of the Government, and it is not the responsibility of the person to prove

whether or not he is genuinely seeking work. These committees are bound to be set up if this Clause stands, for however long extended benefit is given. If it is stated under Clause 12 that 180 days plus so many days if a person has a good record, plus so many more if he comes into a new insurance year, what is the use of the Clause at all? As far as I can see, the only reason is that another Clause shall be inserted somewhere so that a different set of circumstances will apply when a person has exhausted insurance benefit.

Mr. Scollan: Does the Clause say that a person shall be disqualified if he is not genuinely seeking employment?

Mrs. Braddock: No, it does not say that: in Clause 12. What I say is that if Clause 12 is passed another Clause will be needed for determining how additional benefit outside of contribution benefit shall be paid. If we accept Clause 12 we must accept another Clause, because there must be a tribunal to decide whether a person shall go on receiving benefit after he has completely exhausted the benefit he obtained on the common insurance basis. That Clause, of course, is a Clause further on in the Bill, and that Clause sets up tribunals. I, for the life of me, cannot see any difference in the suggested tribunal under this scheme and the tribunal of the moment. It is to be representative, and there will be a chairman, an employers' representative and a workpeople's representative; and that is how the tribunal is made up at the moment. Even under this Bill, if the Clause is passed, and even under Clause 62, and under the other Clause that permits the tribunals to be set up, the dice are always loaded against the unemployed worker. The chairman of the tribunal has been a paid officer, and there is an employers' representative as well. On innumerable occasions I have dissented from the majority decision that has been taken by the chairman and employers' representative. There must be something laid down whereby it can be decided whether a person is genuinely out of work or not. Let us say " genuinely out of work "Instead of " genuinely seeking work."Then it will be a question of deciding whether he is genuinely out of work before he receives-benefit paid by the Treasury and not by the Fund.
I am certain that if this Clause applies and if the various consequential Clauses apply, we are going to have very grave difficulties and much disgust, as far as those people who have to go to the tribunals are concerned. Let us suppose we have a man who has completely exhausted his benefit. He goes to the tribunal that is set up and they say, " We cannot find you work here, but there is plenty of work in Birmingham."This man happens to be a married man, with a wife and three children to support. He reckons that if he goes to Birmingham it will cost him at least £2 a week to live there. If his wages are £4 12s.—I understand that that is about the rate being paid in Birmingham at the moment— he will be left with only about £2 2s. 6d. or £2 5s. to send to his wife and three children, who are living in Liverpool. It is impossible at the moment for a woman and three children to exist on £2 5s. in any part of the country at all. If that man refuses to go to Birmingham, what attitude will the tribunal adopt? They will say he is refusing to work and that he does not want to work, and so he is not entitled to any extended unemployment benefit at all. If this Clause and its subsequent Clauses are withdrawn until after the period of the first five years of the application of the Act, then we shall be in this position, that the man will go to Birmingham, because we shall have provided houses by that time, and he will be able to take his wife and children with him. We have no right to expect people to move about the country and leave their wives and children elsewhere because we cannot provide decent accommodation for them.
9.0 p.m.
I was going to ask the Minister to look at this again, but perhaps I should not say that, because the wording proves that the Minister has tried to make it as easy as possible. Unfortunately, there is a drag somewhere. Someone has been able to force the position. That is all wrong, because I am certain that if the Minister could express his own private opinion, he would not be in favour of this. Those of us who have taken so large a part in unemployed demonstrations, knowing how similar this is to the old policy, will be glad., if we do not get some guarantee, to go openheartedly and with good in-

tentions into the Lobby against a proposal which we consider to be entirely detrimental under this Government or any other Government. I hope, when the Minister replies, that we shall have some definite assurance, and for my part I shall need some definite assurance that there is to be no continuation of the old type of legislation. Unless we get some definite assurance, a number of us will take the responsibility in this case of voting against our party.

Mr. Lever: I am going to vote against the Government on this Clause. I consider that both sides of the House should change their decision. Members on the back benches opposite should vote in accordance with their principles, after all they have said about Members on the back benches on the Government side. I wonder whether they will have the courage to go into the Lobby, in spite of what their leader has said. Surely they do not want us to think that they have no opinions on this question. Let them not hide their views in a cowardly manner by abstaining. For those who are in doubt about the means test, I would point out that after a certain period the long-term unemployed to obtain their benefits will be dependent upon a tribunal, acting on principles which have not yet been disclosed to the House, and of whose constitution we know nothing so far. What we are being asked to do by passing this Clause is to hand over the long-term unemployed to a tribunal who will decide upon their benefits, on principles about which at present we know nothing.
I ask hon. Members on this side of the House whether they are prepared to hand over the long-term unemployed to tribunals of this kind We have had experience of the rights of long-term unemployed men, and the Minister ought to have told us upon what principles the Government are to act in dealing with them The Government should tell us what regulations will govern the tribunals, over which, apparently, this House will have no power once this Measure, as it now stands, has been passed. I hope that everyone on this side of the House will follow the principle, which is the principle of their party, and has been since the beginning of the century, and vote against this Clause


which can only have a mischievous intent, so far as the rights of the long-term unemployed are concerned. I appeal finally to the Opposition to decide on which mast they intend to nail their flag, to have the courage of their convictions and to defy the courageous gentleman who rules their destinies and whose ruling, apparently, they accept with a subservience that appals me. If this Clause is defeated, it will remove once and for all the possibility of a means test. Surely they are not going to allow this Clause to stand without some action on their part.

Mr. Emrys Roberts: I think that this Amendment represents a logical supplement to a real social security scheme. The basis of such a scheme is this—that every man on the condition of working while he can, and contributing while he works, is entitled as of right to maintenance when, by reason of circumstances outside his own control, he is unable to work, as the result of sickness, old age, accident or being thrown out of work. We have accepted that principle as regards sickness, old age and accident; but the Bill unfortunately stops short of accepting it in the case of unemployment. It is generally accepted that any social security scheme, if it is to be effective, must depend also on an effective plan for full employment. We Liberals believe that full employment can be secured by planning to that end. We do not believe that unemployment is caused by vast, mysterious forces, over which we have no control and no understanding. Accordingly, as we believe that, we can control employment, let us show our confidence by carrying to its full logical conclusion our planning for social security, by accepting the principle that men are entitled to benefit for the full period of unemployment. That is all I want to say. I do not want to indulge in any talk about continuity of policy, or in any party recriminations; and certainly I do not wish to charge the Minister with using any devious methods. We Welshmen have not devious minds The Minister showed, in his last speech, that he faces these difficulties courageously, and in a straightforward manner. I hope that to make this great scheme the epoch-making one which it can be, he will accept this final step towards achieving social security for all.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I hope that hon. Members will not think that I am entering into

this Debate at a stage which curtails it unduly, but discussion on this matter has been proceeding for about two hours, and it was our hope to be able to make progress with the Bill tonight. I think, therefore, that I might be permitted to say a few words on this matter in reply to my hon. Friends who have spoken in this Debate. In many ways, perhaps, it is unfortunate that, owing to a number of Amendments at different stages of this Bill, dealing with unemployment, we have had several bits " of Debate about Clauses 12 and 62, and no connected Debate about the whole of the problem. In Committee upstairs, we gave very full consideration to this, and it falls to me now to put, if I may, very briefly before the House, the considerations which led the Government to its decision.
There were two courses open to us under this Bill. We could have made the whole thing, without any kind of limitation or of duration chargeable to the Fund, but I indicated yesterday what that would cost in terms of money and contributions by the contributor. The alternative was to make the provisions that we have done in Clauses 11, 12 and 13. In Clause 11 the conditions under which unemployment and sickness benefits are paid is set out. Clause 13 states the disqualifications and special conditions and Clause 12 makes, provision for the exhaustion of and re-qualification for benefit. The latter is the Clause which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) has now moved to delete from the Bill. I shall show in a moment what the effect of that would be.
I have explained to the House the reasons which prompted the Government to adopt this method of making two provisions for unemployment benefit, including the one in the Clause I have to refer to, which is statutory benefit of 180 days plus added days. I gather that one or two hon. Members have made reference to the added days' benefit, and questioned whether it should be included or not. The position is that the rule of added days of benefit has been in existence as long as unemployment insurance, and I had to consider whether it was worth while continuing it in the Bill or otherwise. I gather from all the evidence that has been given to me, that it was looked upon as desirable and I incorporated it. As hon. Members know, this " added days " rule was put in cold


storage during the period of the war for administrative reasons, but recently it was reintroduced and is working as it was before the war. There may be varying views as to whether we ought to have a rule of that kind or not, but since it was in operation for a long time, and since none of those who came to discuss this problem with me suggested that it should be left out, I incorporated it. I do not think it is a great matter of principle one way or the other.
Under this Clause then, a person will get 180 days' benefit plus whatever added days' benefit he is entitled to on his own contributions over a period. After that, other provision is made. It is difficult to discuss these Clauses separately, and that is why I am sorry that in the course of the Debate they were discussed without being linked together. I hope it will be in order for me to deal with them together, because it is essential to the giving of a clear picture. The charges under Clause 13 will be borne by the Fund and paid by the Fund. When a person is about to exhaust his statutory benefit, we provide in the Bill what is an entirely new provision. At the moment when a person exhausts his standard benefit that is the end of benefit. He then falls entirely outside the insurance scheme. There is no provision in the Unemployment Insurance Acts whereby he will get benefit when his standard benefit is exhausted. The only provision is in the Unemployment Assistance Act. He can apply to the Assistance Board for assistance which will be granted to him subject to his registering at the employment exchange as an unemployed person, fit for work.

Mr. S. O. Davies: But my right hon. Friend must be fully aware that under the Clause, an unemployed person having exhausted the number of days was allotted a further number of days under the Act, and could still draw benefit, subject to the 78 days' review. He was still on benefit for that period of the review, and the Minister is now making it abundantly clear that instead of that period of review, the benefit is going to stop. At least that is my understanding of the position.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend is referring to conditions many years ago, but conditions today are not the same. There

is no 78 days' rule, and, therefore, no loss of standard benefit. When the standard benefit is exhausted a man can only apply to the Assistance Board. That is the position today. Under this Bill, he will have the right to apply to the tribunal. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne wants to convert this right to apply to the tribunal into the right to benefit. What we have done in Clause 62 is to provide that tribunals are to recommend the continuation of benefit under conditions which are to be laid down, and on directions which are to be given by the Minister under the regulations.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Or refuse benefit.

Mr. Griffiths: The right of grant carries, also, the right of refusal. The position is as I stated to the Committee and to the House, that the tribunals would have no right to apply any kind of means test in consideration of that claim. The suggestion that keeps cropping up is that the tribunal, in deciding these cases, will have the right to operate the means test.

Mr. Lever: I suggested that this Clause, as it stands, allows the possibility, or the inevitability, of that, not because the tribunal will apply a means test, but because the claim, if rejected by the tribunal, will automatically go to the Assistance Board, which means the means test

Mr. Griffiths: Where unemployment benefit is refused at any stage of a man's unemployment, he has no recourse but to go to the Board.

Mr. Lever: And the means test.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am sure my right hon. Friend does not want to mislead anybody. It is no good saying that it arises at any stage. The point is that if Clause 12 is in the Bill it must arise after 180 days.

Mr. Griffiths: It is suggested that standard benefit is benefit to which unemployed persons are entitled without condition, and that benefit beyond that is the benefit which they can get only on condition.

Miss Jennie Lee: We hold that during the first week of unemployment, if there is reasonable employment available, the man or woman must take it.

Mr. Griffiths: I said that the conditions under which benefits are paid from the


first day are laid down in Clause 13. There, what I have done is to incorporate the conditions under which standard benefits are now paid under the existing Acts. I considered carefully, and discussed with my colleagues and representatives of the T.U.C. and others, the conditions laid down under Clause 13. The conditions have changed from time to time but I gather that on the whole there seems to be general agreement that those which are now applied to persons who claim benefit under the existing provisions work reasonably well, and that there is no substantial complaint against them. I have, therefore, incorporated in the Bill the provisions which now apply The conditions which will be applied when we come to extend benefit have still to be determined by regulations. The regulations have to be submitted to an Advisory Council and to this House of Commons. One of the Amendments on the Order Paper, which will be reached later is one in which I accept the view that these regulations under Clause 62 are to be subject to the affirmative Resolution of the House. They will, therefore, not become operative until the House has approved them. The House will have the fullest opportunity of deciding whether the conditions to be attached to extended benefit under Clause 62 are satisfactory or otherwise. I was asked in the Committee whether I could indicate what these regulations would be, and I replied that I was sorry I could not do so. I admit that I am still not in a position to answer this question; the matter is still under consideration although I am sure hon. Members will appreciate that we have been working on this Bill under very great pressure.

Mr. Lever: Does that mean that my right hon. Friend is not in a position to tell the House what conditions will make a man subject to the means test?

Mr. Griffiths: I am sure my hon. Friend does not want to put words into my mouth.

Mr. S. Silverman: rose—

Mr. Griffiths: I have listened to the arguments of hon. Members and I really must get on. Clause 62 provides that the Minister will issue regulations that will govern tribunals in deciding whether they recommend continuation or extension of benefit or otherwise. One thing

we have made clear in Clause 62—and I made further Amendments last night, which were accepted by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne, to make it even clearer—is that these regulations would include no power to institute any kind of means test. What remains to be decided is what conditions shall apply. I will be frank with the House and say that it is no use speculating as to what these regulations will be because we have not reached a final conclusion, and I can give no undertaking. I have already said that I do not propose to do anything under Clause 62 in any devious way, and whatever action is taken under the Clause will be taken only with the full approval of the House. For reasons which I may be allowed to explain later in the Debate I had included under Clause 62 certain regulations which were not subject to affirmative resolutions because I had to bring some transitional provisions into operation. I have mentioned this because I want to be perfectly plain and straightforward about it, but the regulations that will finally be framed under Clause 62 will be subject to affirmative resolutions so that the conditions under which tribunals will work cannot come into operation until the House has received, discussed, and approved them.

Mr. Stephen: Could not the Minister tell us, with regard to these regulations, whether the test of willingness to work will be an objective or a subjective test? A great deal depends upon that.

Mr. Griffiths: I have said already that they certainly will be objective tests. Subjective tests are not tests at all, they are penal. These will be objective.

Mr. Cove: It is provided that when the tribunal make recommendations they shall have regard to the industrial conditions in the district. Will that lead to uniformity in decisions by the tribunal, or will it make for varying recommendations, varying according to the industrial conditions in the area? What is the virtue in that?

Mr. Griffiths: It might. It leaves the door open. It may be that the recommendations will be related to the industrial conditions in the area where the applicant lives. I hope I have made it clear that under Clauses 11, 12 and 13 there is provision for standard benefit. Clause 62 goes beyond that. Clause 62 cannot be


brought into operation until the regulations are approved by the Minister and by the House of Commons. Several of my hon. Friends have said that they propose to vote for the deletion of Clause 12. If Clause 12 is deleted, it will mean the recasting of the Bill. Clause 12 is particularly related to Clause II, and the whole Bill would have to be recast.
There are obviously two things of which hon. Members are afraid. The first is the reintroduction of the means test. I hope I have made myself clear on that. Secondly, they are afraid of persons who are not genuinely seeking work. I discussed that at very great length in Committee and gave my views and assurances. I cannot go beyond that for the simple reason that, if I did, I would have to tell the House the conditions under which Clause 62 will operate and I cannot say that, because no decision has been arrived at. I have listened to what has been said upon this matter and I have heard hon. Members express very strong feeling, but at the moment I cannot go further. I hope that that, in itself, will be sufficient to induce my hon. Friends not to press their Amendment.

Mr. Osbert Peake: So far as I and most of my hon. Friends are concerned, we simply have not had put before us the information which would enable us to come to a decision which way to vote on this Amendment. After all, we are dealing with an insurance scheme, and in an insurance scheme benefits are related to contributions. The contribution rates set out in the Bill are, no doubt, related in some way to the period for which there is entitlement to benefit for unemployment and there can be no doubt that if the duration of benefit is increased or becomes unlimited, as it would under the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), the contribution rate would have to be increased accordingly.

Mr. S. Silverman: No.

Mr. Peake: Surely that must be so, because all the money which, under Clause 62, is to come out of the Exchequer would, if the Amendment were carried, have to come out of the Fund.

Mr. S. Silverman: Surely the right hon. Member is deceiving himself about that. There is Clause 62 which is described by

the Minister as dealing with extended benefit. Under Clause 62 the monies do not come out of the Fund. They are paid by the Treasury. There is no difficulty in principle or machinery in making these payments by the Treasury as of right instead of discretionary.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Peake: That may be so but I am dealing with the effect of the hon. Gentleman's own Amendment, which is that unemployment benefit would be payable for an unlimited duration out of the Fund

Miss Jennie Lee: Out of the Exchequer.

Mr. Peake: No, out of the Fund. That is so under the Bill, and there is not the slightest doubt that if this Amendment were carried the charge on the Fund would pro tanto be increased and the contribution would have to be increased accordingly. This Amendment is a division of opinion between the right hon. Gentleman and some of his supporters.

Miss Lee: May we get this clear, because it seems to be a division of fact rather than of opinion. As we understand it, we are proposing that after six months, during which contributions are paid from the Fund, they are met from the Exchequer. Why should the right hon. Gentleman say that this would be an extra burden on the Fund since the Fund would not be involved beyond the six months or the additional period in certain special cases?

Mr. Peake: The right hon. Gentleman will make the point quite clear if I am wrong but surely, if you extend benefit by the deletion of Clause 12, and make it unlimited in duration, the charge on the Fund must pro tanto be increased.

Mr. J. Griffiths: indicated assent.

Mr. Peake: The right hon. Gentleman nods assent, and I am sure that that is the effect—whether or not it is intended to be the effect I do not know—of the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.

Mr. Griffiths: I have explained to the House that I have had to make several speeches on this matter at various times. I made one last night. I referred to this question and I indicated what the increased contribution would be. The present provision relates to 180 days' benefit. Therefore, the unlimited benefit


would fall on the Fund and the contribution would be increased.

Mr. Peake: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and I could call in aid his statement the other day, which was quite categorical, to the effect that the reason he had put a limitation upon the duration of benefit in the Bill was that, if circumstances were to recur similar to those of 1931 or 1932, his insurance fund would be completely " bust."That being the position, this is a dispute between the right hon. Gentleman and some of his supporters below the gangway. There has been an impassioned appeal in a very unusual form to us on these benches by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Exchange Division of Manchester (Mr. Lever). He appealed to us to go into the Lobby against the cause which he has at heart. He is most concerned that sufficient hon. Members of my party shall support the Government on this Amendment to enable him and his friends to go safely into the Lobby against the Government without running any risk of defeating the Government.

Mr. Lever: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? I made no appeal to him, but I made an appeal to the dumb minority behind him who are betraying everything they have stood for since the turn of the century and before, by abstaining on this Clause, and thereby running the risk of the means test being removed from the Statute.

Mr. Peake: I have sometimes been moved by appeals from hon. Members to go into the same Lobby as themselves, but I have never been in the least moved by any appeal from anybody to go into the opposite Lobby, and I do not intend to do so tonight.

Mr. David Renton: In a desire to obtain clarification, and to thrash out the issues in Subsection (1) of this Clause, it seems that we have lost sight of the importance of Subsection (2) which concerns the requalification for sickness benefit. As I see it, it is possible that a person becoming incurably ill before he has paid 156 contributions may find himself in a position of very great hardship, and I wish to put this point to the Minister for his consideration. It so happens that under the Health Service a person will get treatment, but

it does not mean to say that he will be kept in a hospital. He may be having to keep himself. If we turn to the White Paper issued with this Bill we find that sickness benefit at the full rates will be paid indefinitely if the sick person has 156 contributions actually paid at the time.
If he has not 156 contributions actually paid we find in Subsection (2) of Clause 12 that he will get sickness benefit for 312 days and then it seems that it comes to an end subject to the manner in which Clause 4 is going to operate. If the Parliamentary Secretary is to reply, I am sure the House will appreciate an assurance from him that Subsection (4) may be so worked as to overcome any hardship. I conclude by reminding the House that the Coalition White Paper referred to in the White Paper accompanying this Bill said that the proposed invalidity benefit on a reduced rate could be paid after three years.
That may very well be a sensible solution. It is better than nothing; a reduced rate would be better than nothing. Unless good notice is taken of this point, those unfortunate people—and there may be several hundred of them—who become ill before they have paid 156 contributions, will suffer.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I hoped that the Minister would relieve us a little of our anxieties on this matter, but he has not done so. We all appreciate the tremendous task he has had in piloting this vast Bill through the Committee and the House, but I am sure those who have criticised will agree that never since the Bill came before the House has he been less enthusiastic and more uncertain than he has been this evening.
He knows he is reviving all the worst evils in the administration of unemployment insurance in this country. The fact is that he is giving the unemployed something worse than existed 12 or 15 years ago. In those days when the unemployed person had used up his unemployment benefit coming to him in the period fixed in the Act, he could go before, not a local tribunal, but a local committee. It was made up of local persons and did not include a single full time member or official. He could get benefit extended for 78 days. On scores of occasions I sat on those committees. The Minister must know that when a tribunal sits on the


claim of an unemployed person for extended benefit, that tribunal will have to use its power against the unemployed person. I wonder what the Minister's feelings would be if he happened to be the representative of my constituency in this House. In my constituency there are thousands of persons unemployed now who have been out of work from nine to 11 months. They will have exhausted their 180 days and are nearing exhaustion of their added days. I suppose the only consolation or encouragement the Minister can give them is that they will be referred to a tribunal.
That tribunal will have to decide upon certain principles and conditions which this House knows absolutely nothing about at this moment. I am sorry that the Minister has permitted this blot to be placed on what is, with all its small imperfections, an otherwise magnificent piece of legislation. But if there is anything that will bring the Bill into disrepute it is this Clause which the Amendment asks the House to delete from the Bill.
I cannot understand either the degree of shortsightedness on the part of my right hon. Friend and the Cabinet, or their unpardonable obstinacy in permitting, in spite of the protests that have been made, in Committee and elsewhere, the worst aspects of Tory dealing with the unemployed of this country. It is a pity that a blot—I must describe it in the language I feel it justifies—as sordid as this Clause 12 has been permitted to be placed on this Bill. The Minister knows very well that the contents of this Clause cut across nearly all that he has stood for in the interests of the unemployed of this country. No one has defended the unemployed more eloquently on the Floor of this House than he has. Nobody has castigated Tory mentality more furiously and fiercely than the Minister who is fathering this Clause in this Bill today. I am sorry that now, at this stage, we are compelled to link the Minister with the past of Tory misrule and cruelty to the unfortunate unemployed people of this country.
I am in a most unhappy position. I have these thousands of unemployed persons in my constituency, and I am sorry to say that they are likely to be unemployed for a considerable time to come. I cannot allow this Clause to be passed by this House without making my protest.

I am honoured in representing the constituency which was at one time represented in this House by one who is today admitted by everybody to be a great man, the man to whom this Government and this party probably owe more than to any individual in the history of the working class movement of this country, the man who succeeded in getting the Labour movement of this country to accept not merely as a slogan, but as a fundamental truth in our lives, that there must either be work or maintenance. Now, after 180 days, there is to be either work or the infliction of the old Tory penal consequences upon unemployed persons in this country.
As my hon. Friend has already said, I am confident that this Government will provide the solvent for unemployment. I have no misgivings about that. I am prepared to give them reasonable time to prove that our confidence in them is justified, but meanwhile we shall not be true to the traditions of the Labour Party and of this Government if we become parties to the retention of such a Clause as this in the Bill. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to remember his past, to remember the way he has fought, and fought so gallantly. I appeal to other Members of the Government, for heaven's sake, in the interests of our great movement and of the future of this Government, to delete this sordid blot from an otherwise great piece of legislation.

9.45 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I apologise to the House for the fact that I have not been able to hear the whole of this Debate; but my hon. and right hon. Friends on this Bench have reported to me the proceedings and, moreover, the point which is before the. House was given the fullest consideration by the Government as a whole. In view of the history of the controversy with regard to unemployment benefit, it was natural that we should expect feelings, convictions and arguments upon the point, and therefore at earlier stages of the Bill, the Government gave the fullest consideration to the existing controversy upon the provisions of the Bill and to controversies which were probable in view of the past history of the matter. Unemployment benefit is an exceedingly difficult matter to administer. This is an insurance scheme, and it is based upon


contributions settled by statute, and benefits which also have to be settled by statute. It is a contributory scheme to which the employers, the workpeople and the State all contribute, and it is necessary, in considering legislation of this kind, to take into account, and to pay every respect to, the actuarial advice which the Government, being responsible for the framing of the Bill and settlement of its finances, must seek. I start therefore from the point that, first of all, it is an insurance scheme, and must take into account actuarial and financial considerations. If I may say so with respect, I think it is impossible, being an insurance scheme, that it should march upon the basis that there can be unlimited or unqualified benefit in respect of unemployment.

Mrs. Castle: Why did Sir William Beveridge recommend it?

Mr. H. Morrison: Sir William Beveridge is not a Member of His Majesty's Government, and I am not proposing to be dominated by Sir William Beveridge upon every point. I say that it is not unreason able in an insurance scheme, where we are entering into a contract with the citizens, that the contribution and the benefits must be stated and specified in the Statute. What is impossible in any insurance scheme is to base it upon the principle that there are limited contributions and unlimited benefits; there has to be check, review and discussion at some point. I am as fully aware as anybody of the long and bitter controversies which have gone on in regard to this matter. If I may say so, we do not settle the complications involved in this by the mere utterance of slogans. We have to deal with the practical terms of a Statute, and I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies) was unjust to the Minister of National Insurance, unfair—if I may dare to use the word, uncomradely —in comparing my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance, whose record in the Labour movement is just as good as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr or anybody else—

Mr. S. O. Davies: I admit it.

Mr. Morrison: It is a little brutal, crude and inconsiderate to refer to my right hon. Friend, with his very fine record in trade union and labour circles, as if he were an

utterly reactionary and awful Tory politician. With every respect to hon. Gentlemen opposite, that is just too bad.
We start, therefore, upon the principle that it is difficult, in a scheme of this sort, to ignore contributions on the one hand, and conditions of benefit on the other. We cannot have stated contributions calculated to cover the finances of the Bill, and also have unrestricted and unlimited benefits. Otherwise, the actuarial and financial sides of the Bill will get altogether out of accord. What did the Government do? We recognised, we accepted and we affirmed that we did not want to go back to the bad practices of the past. If we could avoid it, we did not want to go back either to the cruder, forms of " not genuinely seeking work " —in itself a slogan of some sense but most difficult to administer fairly to the workpeople—nor did we wish to go back to the cruder forms of the means test.

Mr. George Thomas: Or to any form of means test.

Mr. Morrison: That is the kind of extreme slogan which does not face the administrative actualities that we have to consider. It is all very well to throw that phrase across the Floor of the House, but if my hon. Friend were sitting in Cabinet, or in Cabinet Committee, he would have to face the actualities of the situation. [HON. MEMBERS: " Hear, hear."] I have had to do it for a long time, in one way or another, so perhaps I have some feelings on the point. Then we must consider how we can protect the finances of the Bill, within reason, without indulging in crude brutalities or harshness to the workpeople concerned. The conclusion which the Government reached was that benefit would go on under the insurance scheme and within the finances of the insurance scheme for a stated period. On actuarial grounds it was, in our view, right and inevitable that, after a stated period, the insurance benefit would have to come to a point of review or cessation. The question is, What happens then? Under the old legislation, the benefits stopped automatically, without argument, and the workman was required to go to the Assistance Board. The Assistance Board has done its work with as much humanity and skill as it could. However, we did not adopt that expedient. We provided that, at that point, the workman, the contributor, should have


the right, with any other party concerned, to go to a tribunal to review the case, to have a discussion about it and for a fair decision to be reached as to whether he should then go on to what is called extended benefit. That extended benefit will be at the cost of the Exchequer. We are in new circumstances, I suggest, under the Bill, whereby the workman is entitled to argue and to plead his case, and is to have, as I assure the House, under the jurisdiction of my right hon. Friend, a fair decision upon the facts. We do not want the workman to be penalised.

Major Bruce: Did the right hon. Gentleman say " plead his case "?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, certainly. Why should he not? I put it to my hon. Friends, are we Socialists or are we not?

Major Ramsay: Is this a private quarrel?

Mr. Morrison: Hon. Members opposite are entitled to join in, although I gathered from the speech of the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) that the Opposition are inclined to abdicate from their responsibilities. I approach this matter as a Socialist, If under an insurance scheme the contributors contribute on the basis of a financial contract for benefit, when that financial contract actuarially comes to an end, and the beneficiary is to go on to State funds, the State is entitled to have discussion and review before it parts with its money. After all, let it not be assumed that all taxpayers come from the upper classes. I thought we all knew enough about that, in view of the pressure from the working classes to reduce taxation upon them. It is an utter illusion to believe that the average working man wants to be a party to any possibility of the evasion of fairness in the administration of State moneys or to any possibility of State moneys being abused by the recipients. What we provide, in justice and fairness to the worker, is that he shall be entitled to a fair review of his case, and if he gets through on his case, he will become entitled to extended benefit entirely at the expense of the Exchequer. Surely, the Exchequer has a right to be reasonably assured that the money will be fairly and properly spent without abuse.
Moreover, this is not the end of the story. There are to be regulations, which will really be the essence of the business, as far as the principles of administration are concerned. Those regulations will not be regulations against which Prayers can be moved; they will be regulations which can operate only by an Affirmative Resolution. Therefore, the House will not have finished with the matter tonight; it will have an opportunity of argument and debate, and more trouble and embarrassment, if necessary, on the regulations. There will be plenty more chances if my hon. Friends want to have more discussion on the matter. The regulations will be subject to Affirmative Resolution; my right hon. Friend is not asking for a blank cheque. That seems to me to be a commonsense attitude on the part of the Government. I cannot believe that those of my hon. Friends who have feelings on this matter, and for the sincerity of whose feelings I have the highest regard, are affirming the doctrine that any citizen, even a working-class citizen, has the unconditional right to draw money from the State without question, query or justification. Any Socialist who affirms that is affirming something which is contrary to the self-respecting and upright principles of Socialism.
Therefore, it seems to me that we have to choose between some channel of argument, some channel of review, some channel of fair decision, or unconditional benefit unlimited in time. I say, frankly, that whether the Government are right or wrong, they will not seek to justify on the Floor of the House unconditional, unlimited benefit out of the public funds in any circumstances. [Interruption.] There may be noise, but the Government will not do it. We will not stand up for that doctrine

10.0 p.m.

Miss Jennie Lee: I think it is very important that the Leader of the Party should make it quite clear that we do not believe in unconditional benefit even in the first week of unemployment.

Mr. Morrison: I only warn my hon. Friends that I apprehend that that may be the philosophy into which they are in danger of drifting. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I apprehend it. I have heard the argument elsewhere and in other cir-


cumstances, and I say that is an argument that this Government cannot support. Finally, I understand—

Colonel Ropner: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point—

Mr. Morrison: Let us get on. I understand perfectly the emotions and the strong feelings of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr, though I think he was unkind, and harsh, and unjust to my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance. South Wales has a long history of bitter industrial depression and of unemployment. I understand his apprehensions, but a lot of the argument behind the speeches of some of my hon. Friends in this Debate, is the belief that we are going back to those conditions of depressed areas and of unlimited unemployment. We are not. [An HON. MEMBER: " Why the Clause then? "] It is the intention of this Government that we are going to work with vigour and energy for full employment. I say to the House that it is a good thing and not a bad thing that Governments faced with unemployment should be up against this problem of an unlimited period for the statutory right to insurance benefit. If the Government cannot solve this problem of unemployment and prevent unlimited unemployment so as to avoid these vast numbers of cases that used to occur, and enormous numbers of men and women experiencing unlimited periods of unemployment—if this Government cannot do that I will confess we have failed in our job.
It is the intention of my hon. Friends behind me, and of the Government on this bench, that that evil condition, which is hot in the memory of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr, shall not recur in the history of our country. Therefore, let us start on this basis, that we are not legislating for interminable unemployment; we are legislating on the basis of limited unemployment. If we legislate upon any other basis, we are legislating at the beginning, on a confession of failure, almost before we have begun the economic life of this Government. This is an insurance scheme. It must be so considered and, for my own part, I think it a good thing that if the legitimate actuarial financial basis of the insurance

scheme cannot take care of the unemployed, the Government shall be forced, time and again, in the House of Commons to face up to the problem of long-term unemployment. That is all I can say except that I understand the strong feelings about it; but I ask the House to accept the view that the Government have given this the most careful, sympathetic, and understanding consideration. We are going to a Division, and the House will decide. The Government stand firmly and unitedly behind my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance. I urge the House to give my right hon. Friend their confidence and support to face the issue, understanding that, later on, there can be further Debates upon the regulations.

Mr. S. Silverman: I do not know why my right hon. Friend was not content to leave the argument where my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance left it, but I am grateful to him' for his intervention, because he has said that the Government have given very careful consideration to this matter, whereas his speech has shown that they have completely misunderstood—I should hate to say misrepresented—what those of us on these benches wish. The point is a perfectly simple one, and my hon. Friends are perfectly capable of understanding it and of taking their decision about it. It is the simple issue of whether, after an arbitrary period of time is over, an unemployed man shall have a right to benefit, or whether he shall be subjected to a discriminatory test, which nobody knows anything about, and which will inevitably leave large numbers of men at the mercy of the Assistance Board, which means the means test as a whole.
What we are saying—and this is all I have to say about it before we divide— is this: Let there be such checks, after the period, as the Government wish, impose such conditions as they think fair to protect the Fund in every possible way from scrounging or from any fraudulent claims; but, when they have done all that, do not let them deny any unemployed man, whose unemployment is due to no fault of his own, his right of a claim on the community so that his standard of living shall not fall.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Whiteley): rose in his place


and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out to the word ' the,' in page 13, line 5, stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 246; Noes, 44.

Division No. 184.]
AYES.
[10.06 p.m.


Adams, W T. (Hammersmith, South)
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Mellor, Sir J.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Gibbins, J.
Messer, F.


Alpass, J. H.
Gibson, C. W
Middleton, Mrs. L.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Gilzean, A.
Mitchison, Maj. G R.


Awbery, S. S.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Montague, F.


Ayles, W. H.
Gooch, E. G.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Morley, R.


Bacon, Miss A
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)


Baldwin, A. E.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Mort, D. L.


Balfour, A.
Grenfell, D. R.
Moyle, A.


Barstow, P. G
Grey, C. F.
Murray, J. D


Barton, C.
Grierson, E.
Nally, W.


Battley, J. R.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Naylor, T. E.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Neal, H. (Claycr[...]ss)


Belcher, J. W.
Guy, W. H.
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)


Bellenger, F. J.
Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)
Nicholls. H. R. (Stratford)


Bennett, Sir P.
Hale, Leslie
Noel-Buxton Lady


Berry, H.
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Oldfietd, W. H


Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsw'th, C.)
Hamilton, Lieut-Col. R.
Oliver, G. H-


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Paget, R. T.


Binns, J.
Hardman, D. R.
Palmar, A. M. F


Blenkinsop, Capt. A.
Hardy, E. A.
Parker, J.


Blyton, W.R.
Harrison, J.
Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T


Bottomley, A. G.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Peart, Capt. T. F.


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Henderson, A, (Kingswinford)
Perrins, W.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)
Popplewell, E.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Holmes, H E. (Hemsworlh)
Price, M. Philips


Brown, George (Belper)
House, G.
Pritt, D. N.


Burden, T. W
Hubbard, T.
Proctor, W. T.


Burke, W. A.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, w.)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Chetwynd, Capt. G. B
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Ranger, J.


Clitherow, Dr. R.
Hughes, Lt. H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Cluse, W. S.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Reeves, J.


Cobb, F. A.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Coldrick, W.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Richards, R.


Collick, P.
Irving, W. J.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Collindridge, F
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Collins, V. J.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Colman, Miss G. M.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)
Ropner, Col. L.


Comyns, Or. L.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Royle, C.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Sargood, R.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Keenan, W.
Scott-Elliot, W.


Crawley, Fit.-Lieut. A
Kenyon, C
Segal, Dr. S.


Daines, P
Key, C W.
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A A


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
King, E. M.
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.
Shawcross, Sir H. (St. Helens)


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Kinley, J.
Shurmer, P.


Deer, G.
Kirby, B. V.
Skeffington, A. M.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Lavers, S.
Skinnard, F. W.


Delargy, Captain H. J
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Diamond, J.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Dobbie, W.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Snow, Capt. J. W.


Donovan, T.
Leonard, W.
Sorensen, R. W


Douglas, F. C. R.
Leslie, J. R.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F


Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Sparks, J. A.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Lindgren, G. S.
Stamford, W.


Dye, S.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Stewart, Capt. Michael (Fulham, E.)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C
Logan, D. G.
Stubbs, A. E.


Edelman, M.
Lyne, A. W.
Symonds, Maj. A. L.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
McAllister, G.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
McEntee, V. La T
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Mack, J. D
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)


Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
MoKinlay, A. S.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Ewart, R.
Maclean, N. (Govan)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Ed'b'gh, E.)


Fairhurst, F.
McLeavy, F.
Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)


Farthing, W. J.
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Thurtle, E.


Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)
Timmons, J.


Forman, J. C
Marquand, H. A.
Titterington, M. F.


Foster, W. (Wigan)
Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Tollt[...]y, L.


Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Mayhew, C. P.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G


Freeman, Maj. J. (Watford)
Medland, H. M.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Gaitskell, H. T. N.

Vernon, Maj W. F.




Viant, S. P.
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E)
Williamson, T.


Walkden, E.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Wills, Mrs. E. A


Walker, G. H.
Wigg, Col. G. E.
Wise, Major F. J.


Wallace, G. D, (Chislehurst)
Wilkinson, Rt. Hon. Ellen
Woods, G. S.


Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)
Yates, V. F.


Warbey, W. N.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Weitzman, D.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Wells, P. L. (Faversham)
Williams, Rt Hon. T. (Don Valley)



Wells, W. T. (Walsall)
Williams, W. R. (Heston)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Pearson and Mr. Simmons.




NOES.


Baird, Capt. J.
Davies, S. O. (Merlhyr)
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Blackburn, A. R,
Dodds, N. N.
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)


Bowen, R.
Driberg, T. E. N.
Orbach, M.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Follick, M.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Goodrich, H. E.
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Bruce, Maj. D. W, T.
Gruffyd, Prof. W. J.
Stephen, C.


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Horabin, T. L.
Tiffany, S.


Byers, Lt.-Col. F.
Lang, G.
Wadsworth, G.


Champion, A. J.
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B


Cocks. F. S.
Lever, Fl. Off. N. H.
Zillia[...]us, K.


Cook, T. F.
Lipson, D. L.



Cove, W. G
McGhee, H. G
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Daggar, G.
McGovern, J.
Mr. S. Silverman and


Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Mackeson, Lt. Col. H. R.
Mrs. Castle.


Question, "That the proposed words be therefore inserted in the Bill," put, and agreed to.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Mr. Speaker, before you call the next Amendment, may I ask what are the Government's intentions about proceeding with the Report stage this evening? We have not yet really got on to the Report stage, except-for this one Debate which has been monopolised by the supporters of the Government and by those in the same party who have opposed the Government, We have twice this evening had the spectacle of Members of the Labour Party forming the four Tellers and voting against each other. On this side of the House we have had no opportunity at all of debating the Report stage of this Bill, and I want to ask the Government how far they propose to go this evening, because it is clear that we cannot do justice to the Report stage this evening even if we sit a bit longer.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: I am bound to say this request surprises me. It is true that four Members of the Labour Party have acted as Tellers, but the right two were in the right place, and I am not complaining. But who is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) to complain that the Opposition have not played their part? If the Opposition abdicate their functions, contract out of Parliamentary service, refuse to earn their salaries and malinger in this way, merely because they are enjoying a very slight and minor difference of opinion among the supporters of the Government, that is all right, but certainly

the right hon. Gentleman cannot claim credit for it. That is his funeral. If he goes that way, he must go that way.
On the point of substance which the right hon. Gentleman quite clearly raises, I may say we have had two Debates of considerable substance. It is true that the first Debate was an overflow from the Debate yesterday, but it did last some time, and it was a Debate of substance on an important issue of the Bill, namely, the approved societies; the House divided, and that was settled. We have since had a considerable Debate, and a very interesting one—certainly very interesting from my point of view—and we have just divided upon that. The Opposition, it is true, did not play a very prominent part in it, but that was their decision. We have decided that My information is, if I may say so to the House in a spirit of sweet reasonableness, that I understand there are, unhappily, no more great and exciting issues about which we can get into difficulties.
There are relatively small points, and on the whole I should have thought the House might continue to finish the Report stage. With good, workmanlike progress, I think we might do it in about an hour. [Interruption.] I should have thought so. It is eminently the duty of the House of Commons to spend time upon the big issues. It is equally the duty of the House of Commons not to spend too much time upon the small issues. I do not think there is much issue of substance left. I would respectfully, politely and courteously say to the right hon. Gentleman,


that if we go on in a rational and sensible way I think we shall complete the Report stage quite soon.

Mr. Butler: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, might I ask the Leader of the House whether he agrees that if we go on in a rational and sensible way—which we undertake to do—we can give full and proper attention to all the points that ought to be raised? If that is the case, and if he will not keep the House sitting too late, we do not desire to obstruct on any point that is raised. It was due to our desire not to obstruct that we did not take part in the domestic quarrel which has just taken place.

Mr. Morrison: Mr. Speaker, with your permission I would say I reciprocate the very reasonable spirit manifested by the right hon. Gentleman. I suggest to the House; Let us see what we can do; let us go ahead.

CLAUSE 12.—(Exhaustion of and requalification for benefit.)

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 13, line 5, to leave out from " where,"To the second "to,"In line 6, and to insert:
 he shows that he did not intend, by failing to acquire or establish a right to benefit for that day.
This is a drafting Amendment. It arises from the Committee stage, when a number of hon. Members thought that the wording of the Clause was not as clear as it might be. My right hon. Friend gave an undertaking that between the Committee stage and the Report stage he would give consideration to the wording, in conjunction with the Parliamentary draftsmen, in order that the Clause might be made clearer than the original draft in the Bill.

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.

Mr. C. Williams: rose

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I have collected the voices.

Mr. Williams: May I raise a point of Order?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may raise a point of Order.

Mr. Williams: On a point of Order. I accept what you say, Mr. Speaker, but I had the misfortune to have someone pass straight in front of me as you put the Question.

Earl Winterton: May I raise a point of Order? The hon. Gentleman was distinctly on his feet but someone passed in front of him as you, Mr. Speaker, collected the voices.

Mr. Speaker: I did not see the hon. Gentleman because there was someone in between us. There was someone in front of the hon. Gentleman, but the voices have been collected. The Question is, "That the proposed words be there inserted in the Bill."

Earl Winterton: Do I understand your Ruling to be, Mr. Speaker, that if an hon. Member rises and addresses you, and someone happens to pass in front of him, you do not call him?

Mr. Speaker: Certainly not. The noble Lord has no right to think that. But if I could not see the hon. Gentleman I could not see him. It is not my fault if it is physically impossible for me to see him. The suggestion the noble Lord has made ought not be made.

Earl Winterton: I merely asked you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. Do you suggest it was improper for me to ask for your Ruling?

Mr. Speaker: No, but the noble Lord made a suggestion which he ought not to have made.

Sir John Mellor: On a point of Order Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) was on his feet—[HON. MEMBERS: "We have heard that."]— before you started to collect the voices, and with great respect, you were not looking in this direction—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]

Mr. Speaker: If I had to look all round before collecting the voices, I might waste a great deal of time. I am not prepared to carry on with this matter.

CLAUSE 13.—(Disqualifications and special conditions.)

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 13, line 8, to leave out " his ".

This is also a drafting Amendment, in order to bring the Clause into line with Section 26 of the Unemployment Act, 1935.

Mr. C. Williams: I am afraid I am not quite able to accept the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation that this is purely a drafting Amendment. On the assumption that he is right, and that it is only a drafting Amendment, I think that an apology is due to the House from the hon. Gentleman that this Amendment is put in only now at this late stage of the Bill. If, on the other hand, this Amendment is the result of some promise he made, then, to my mind, it is not a mere drafting Amendment. I raise these two points because I think that the Minister has something more to say. On an occasion such as this it is only right that we should have as much information as we can get, so that we can put it before our constituents in due course.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 14.—(Maternity grant and attendance allowance.)

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 16, line 14, at the end, to insert:
 (5) A woman certified in accordance with subsection (1) of this section to have been confined of twins or a greater number of children shall, if the other conditions for payment of a maternity grant are satisfied in respect of the confinement, be entitled to a maternity grant for each of them.
This Amendment arises from a discussion in the Standing Committee, in which the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) put before the Committee the case on behalf of the mother who gives birth to more than one child. He felt that a mother with twins should get double payment, and the mother of triplets treble payment, and we make provision for such payments accordingly.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: We should like to express our gratitude, on behalf of the triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets, for the passing of this Amendment. I feel that this Amendment achieves justice at last for these future members of our population. Are we to understand that the

greater the number of children, the greater the number of grants paid, that there is no limit to the size of the litter, if I may use that expression, in respect of which a grant can be paid under this wise Amendment? If so, I shall regard the Minister as even more far-sighted than I had imagined.

Mr. Lindgren: I am not quite certain whether it is the sky or the stork that is the limit.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 16, line 14, at the end, to insert:
(5) Regulations may modify the provisions of this section so far as they relate to a maternity grant with a view to making the grant payable, if the woman's claim indicates that she so desires, by virtue of a certificate that it is to be expected that she will be confined, instead of by virtue of a certificate that she has been confined.
This Amendment arises from the case put in Committee that the maternity benefit should be payable before confinement, in order to enable the potential mother to meet the cost of articles necessary for the confinement. That point has been met by this Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 15.—(Maternity allowance.)

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 16, line 23, after " confinement) ", to insert:
 not being more than the prescribed number of weeks after that in which the certificate is given.
This, again, is a drafting Amendment. It is consequential on the previous Amendment which places a time limit within which the maternity benefit can be drawn before the confinement. The intention is that it should be payable six weeks before the confinement, and the Amendment is moved accordingly.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: In this particular provision, I understand, we are dealing with a certificate. If I understand it correctly, the proviso for granting a certificate is to be dealt with in regulations. Surely it would be more appropriate to deal with the period in regulations, rather than in the body of the Bill?

Mr. Lindgren: That is the intention, and the prescribed number of weeks is not included in the Amendment. Because this is a benefit arising from a future event, it is fair to require a time limit, within


which that benefit can be paid in anticipation. The intention is to include the number of weeks in regulations. The figure of six weeks which I mentioned was a courtesy intimation to the House. It is to be some time between eight weeks and six, within which the benefit shall be paid.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 16.—(Supplemental provisions as to maternity benefit.)

Mr. Lindgren: I beg to move, in page 17, line 32, at the end, to insert:
 or, if the woman is confined of twins or a greater number of children, to the date of issue of the last of them; 
This Amendment is consequential upon the previous Amendment to give greater maternity benefits where there is more than one child at a confinement.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 17.—(Widow's benefit.)

Mr. J. Griffiths: I beg to move, in page 18, line 32, to leave out "Twenty," and to insert "Thirty."
During the consideration of the Bill in Committee, we had a good deal of discussion about the earnings rule as applied to widows, and several suggestions were made. One was the suggestion which appears on the Paper in the form of an Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). It proposes that over and above the limit of 20s. which, we have in. the Bill now we should, if I may use the phrase, divide the surplus into two amounts, one of which the widow would keep and the other which we should take away. There was, I think, real point in permitting earnings without reduction of pension for widows, and I felt that the best and clearest way of doing this was to increase the pension. The simpler the rules at the better for administration, and there will not be dissatisfaction about whether the amount has been divided or not. Twenty shillings is the provision in the Bill as it stands—here we propose to increase the sum to 30s. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree that this is perhaps the better way because it is the simplest way of dealing with this matter and preferable to the suggestion which he had embodied in his Amendment.

Mr. R. A. Butler: We had an important Amendment on the Order Paper to which the Minister has referred, the effect of which was to change the reduction of the widow's earnings from 1s. to 6d. The Minister has decided to trump my ace, by changing the sum the widow may earn from 20s. to 30s. As the Minister has a large holding of trumps, and is able to trump my aces whenever I put them on the table, I have no alternative but to give way, but I would say that although I lose the trick, to the extent that I have lost my Amendment—because I do not propose to waste time by pressing it— I acknowledge the fact that actually the honour and glory in this matter reside on this side of the House. The Minister has shown wisdom by adopting the spirit of my Amendment, although carrying it out a different way.
In order that the widows may understand what has happened, I think it is necessary to say that in future the Clause will read:
 Where the earnings of the widow have exceeded 30 shillings for the week preceding any week for which she is entitled to a widowed mother's allowance or a widow's pension, the weekly rate of the allowance or pension shall for the last mentioned week be reduced by one shilling for each complete shilling of the excess.
The result is that the widow may earn 30s. without worrying about anything being deducted. This is a very salutary improvement and we are glad, that we have by our efforts in Committee and by our initiative here on the Floor of the House, improved the position for widows. The honours are divided, and though the Minister may have cunning card-playing methods, he can be satisfied that the game is a clean and straight one, and that we are both out for the same ends.

Mr. Nigel Birch: When we were discussing this matter in the Standing Committee the question of increasing the earnings beyond 20s. was raised and the Minister said:
 No one has put forward a suggestion as to how much beyond the 20s. I should allow as an earnings rule. If I allowed more in this Bill, I should have to make arrangements to put forward an Amendment of that kind in respect of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill, and I would urge Members to realise that this has very serious con-quences."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 12th March, 1946; c. 193]
Is this to be parallel with the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Bill, or are further steps to be taken?

Mr. C. Williams: Before the Minister replies I should like to say that, having not had the advantage of a position in the Committee upstairs, I have been rather worried about the limitation on the widow's earnings. It is a matter which concerns a formidable number of widows, as I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite realise. Having had some concern over the matter, and having watched the Minister closely in other proceedings during the day, I take this opportunity of thanking him—if I may have the courtesy of his attention. A lot of things have been said of the Minister and I am trying to say—if the Minister will give me his attention—how much I appreciate —[Interruption.]—I am trying to say something to the Minister. A lot of nasty things have been said about him today and I want to say how much I appreciate his action in this case. Thanks to the wise counsels he was afforded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler), and thanks to his own wisdom and courage in accepting the Amendment, he has been able to improve the position so far as the earnings of many widows in my constituency are concerned. I appreciate that this has a, significance which goes beyond the mere giving of this sum of money to these particular people. At a time such as this when there is a considerable shortage of labour, if we can use our unemployed in such a way it is a very good thing for the community as a whole. Although I congratulate the Minister, I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden and those who have been helping him in this matter are also to be congratulated. Whatever was said earlier in the day, their services have been in this case, as on many other occasions, a perfect Godsend to the Minister in improving the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 20.— (Retirement pensions.)

Mr. Peake: I beg to move, in page 20, line 38, at the end, to insert:
and temporary employment shall not be deemed to be inconsistent with retirement.
This Amendment and the next Amendment on the Paper should be considered together, as both affect the same point. While we do not disagree with the principle that retirement should be a condition of the pension, we do want, to make sure, if we can that people shall

not be discouraged from taking a hand, let us say, at harvest time by the conditions of the Clause. We therefore wish to provide that temporary employment shall not be deemed to be inconsistent with retirement. The second Amendment proposes to leave out subsection (5) of the Clause which provides that where earnings of a beneficiary have exceeded 20s. weekly, the rate of his pension shall be reduced by 1s. for each complete 1s. of the excess. These Amendments are designed to enable people who have, in fact, retired, to lend a hand when their services are required, whether it be for harvest, or for some other purely temporary purpose, and yet to continue to draw their retirement pension.

10.45 p.m.

Major Digby: Hon. Members who were on the Standing Committee will remember that this was a question on which we had considerable discussion. I believe it is an important point. No hon. Members on this side of the House would, I am sure, disagree with the proposition that it is important that as many men as possible should, instead of retiring at 65, go on working until 70. But there are many who are no longer able to work after 65, and who will wish to go into retirement but who, nevertheless, might be able to undertake temporary or part time work of one kind or another. It is very important that they should be willing to undertake it. Particularly is this the case at times when there is a seasonal shortage of workers, such as at harvest time. I, therefore, submit to the House that these men should be given every encouragement to do such work. In reply to an Amendment I moved in Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary himself admitted the validity of these arguments. He said:
If employment was inconsiderable, if the intention of retirement was there, if a person only went to do a job for a short time, so as to give someone else a necessary hand, it would be grossly unfair if he were penalised."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 12th March, 1946.]
That, I am sure, is a proposition with which few of us would disagree, but the fact remains that, as the Clause stands, there is little incentive for a retired person to go on working. In the first place, if he were to work for three or four weeks running, or for a considerable period at harvest time, it is by no means clear how it would affect his posi-


tion as a retired person. Would there be any question of losing his status as a retired person? I hope the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary, will give us an assurance on this point.
In the second place, with regard to actual earnings, anything he earns over £1 a week will be deducted—for every shilling over £1, a shilling will be deducted, from his retirement benefit. In other words, it will not be worth his while to work for anything between £1 and, say, £3 a week. If he is to work at harvest time and is to be of any use at all, he certainly will be earning more than £1 a week. So I do feel that there is a strong case for the Minister's looking at this matter again.
There is one other point that I wish to mention, with regard to the averaging out of earnings. We had some remarks from the Parliamentary Secretary upstairs on this, but I am still not clear about it. I would like to hear what the exact position is. I understand that over a period of a week or two, the earnings would be averaged out so that if he earned 30s. one week and 10s. the next, it would be averaged out to £1 for each of the two weeks. That is very satisfactory; but we would like to see that process go a little further. This kind of seasonal employment goes on for more than two or three weeks, and there may be many men who will do nothing at all, many retired persons who will have no work at all, for many months in the year, and who, when it comes to harvest time, may wish to work for three or four weeks on end. If the position is to be that they lose their entire retirement benefit for that period, they will not be encouraged to work. Our purpose in moving this Amendment is to meet these cases, and I hope the Minister will give it every consideration.

Mr. C. Williams: I would like to say a few words in support of my hon. and gallant Friend on this matter. I will not go further as regards the question of harvesting but let me take the type of case which might happen in the offices, say, of one of the trade unions in my constituency. Suppose the trade union secretary breaks down for a few weeks, and his father takes on the job. It would naturally be a matter of concern to me, if that father had a pension, that his pension should not be just cut off by the Government.

The same might happen, for instance, in the case of the harvesting of potatoes in my constituency. I think all these things should be obvious to the Government, and at this time of night I need not try to illustrate them any further. I have to remember what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House said about this earlier. He said, " We must really do our duty in these matters ". I have a lot of fishing people in my Division, and they are seriously concerned. If an elderly man takes a job at fishing for a week or two, at a time of the year when there are a lot of fish about, such as herring, is he to be penalised as a pensioner? That is an obvious illustration of the case for the acceptance of this Amendment.
There is a further point. Take the question of shops. Take the case of a small tailor, for example, where the business is carried on by two persons who have living with them their elderly father who has a pension. This man may help a little at different times in the shop. It is only temporary work, and not for any great length of time. Surely we have the right to see that his pension is safeguarded. This is one of the occasions when we might appeal to right hon. and hon. Members on the opposite side of the House to take the same point of view as we take. This is a case in which a man is too old to work regularly. We do not wish him to go on the labour market, but we do wish to see that he is not denied the opportunity of having that interest in life—an interest which often prolongs life—which comes from a little work now and then. I see, Mr. Speaker, that one of my more sympathetic friends on the opposite side is nodding his head. Many people who have had to deal with these old people, know what happens to a man who is pensioned off and is afraid to take on any other job for fear of losing his pension. I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman opposite to do anything but sneer and jeer at this Amendment, but I know that some of his hon. Friends will support us.

Mr. Basil Nield: I hope the House will support the view which I take, that of all the provisions in this great Bill for national insurance, one of the most important is that in Clause 20, referring to retirement pensions. All right hon. and hon. Members, I imagine, in all parts of the House, have had to deal with tragic cases of old people, who are


past regular employment. Now that we are putting on the Statute Book this provision for the care of our people, I think we should make as good a job of it as possible. Subsection (2) of Clause 20 is directed towards permitting a person who is entitled to retire with pension to earn other money at casual employment. In order to make it plain that those who reach pensionable age, will not have their pension reduced if they undertake some temporary employment, I urge that this Amendment should be accepted. As my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House have pointed out. we can envisage the sort of case in which a man of, say, 70 or over desires to supplement his pension at certain times of the year. It is right that his pension rights should not be jeopardised by this laudable desire, and to make it plain in Subsection (2), there should be inserted the specific words:
Temporary employment shall not be deemed to be inconsistent with retirement.
There is also the other point about Subsection (5) in regard to the spreading over of earnings so as not to disentitle a man to pension. In other words, if for one week an elderly person earns more than £1— maybe £2 or £3—let it be spread over the period when he does not work so that his retirement pension is not reduced. I commend this proposal to the House as a contribution towards the improvement of this Clause; I hope the right hon. Gentleman will regard it as a sensible and constructive suggestion.

Mr. Molson: I hope we shall hear something upon this subject from the Parliamentary Secretary. In Committee he gave an explanation in answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Western Dorset (Major Digby) which he afterwards found to be incorrect. On that occasion the hon. Gentleman at once desired to " come clean." He asked leave to make a statement and said he would not like to mislead the Committee. One recalls an earlier incident, and one is glad to see the growth in grace on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary. Having slipped on one occasion when he did not make quite a clean breast of it, but he was on the next occasion very frank with the Committee and rectified the mistake he had made as to the meaning of this Clause. That was in regard to the earnings of these pensioners. Obviously,

the question of what does constitute retirement, is going to be one of the most difficult administrative problems the Government will have to deal with. It really is of very great importance to all the people who claim to have retired to know how much work they may do without forfeiting their rights to be regarded as retired. I did expect to find an Amendment put down by the Government before the Report stage which would have made this provision plainer than it is, because I think it obvious from what the Parliamentary Secretary said that he had understood the wording of the Bill in a certain way, but afterwards he found he was wrong. Obviously on the first occasion he thought that the Bill represented what he had in mind as desirable, and I did, therefore, think that before the Report stage there would have been an Amendment to make the position clear.
There is another matter in reference to this question of retirement on which I would like an explanation. I should have thought that these retired people would be treated in exactly the same way as the widows. I should have thought that, in equity, both ought to be treated in the same way. But while the right hon. Gentleman has put down an Amendment to Clause 17 to raise the maximum a widow may earn from 20s. to 30s., no similar Amendment has been put down with regard to retired people. I would like to ask one or other of the Ministers to explain why, while the Government have invited the House tonight to alter the maximum earnings in the case of widows, a similar alteration has not been made in the case of a retired person. I can hardly suppose it was the part of my hon. Friends on this side of the House to put down such an Amendment, and I should not like to think the Government only raise these matters when they want to trump our aces.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths: This is a matter of considerable importance, and one to which I have had to give, from the beginning, very considerable attention and real consideration. We are introducing a new method of paying old age pensions. We now describe them as " retirement pensions " and I appreciate that what is the retirement age is of great importance. First of all, the person who is qualified under the Bill and who reaches retirement


age will indicate to us that he proposes to retire from regular employment. In normal cases the man reaches pensionable age while still following his regular employment, and he indicates that when he attains the age of 65 he retires. If he does not retire, under the provisions in the Bill he will earn for every half year he works, and pays 25 contributions, an increment to his pension of is. for himself and 1s. for his wife. The pension is payable on retirement and payment is made at the appropriate rate, the standard being 26s. and 42s. with the increments I have already described.
When the pensioner retires between the ages of 65 and 70 we provide an earnings rule. I gave a good deal of consideration to this, for it is a very important problem. My attention was called to this and it had to be considered in relation to the old people with every desire to be fair to them, but it also has trade union repercussions. It has been known, I understand, for the old age pension of 10s. to be used on occasion by unscrupulous people as a lever to reduce wages.
So there is a pension of 26s. on condition of retirement. First of all, I was anxious to see that the pension is not exploited by any employer. Secondly, I was equally desirous of seeing that retirement did not mean that the pensioner was completely cut off from any kind of work at all. There are lots of odd jobs that old people like to do and will give an opportunity to earn something extra. Now how much? I fixed 20s. for a man and 20s. for his wife, so they can earn £2 in addition to the 42s. As has been indicated in the Amendment which I moved earlier, and which the House has accepted, I have increased the earnings rule from 20s. to 30s. in the case of a widowed mother or a widow. I considered whether to increase it for aged people to 30s. each or £3 for the two. Eventually, after full consideration, I came to the conclusion that it would be wrong to do that. I think 20s. is a fair amount to allow. If it gets beyond that, it raises rather difficult questions of pensionable age.

Mr. Molson: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, why? What is the logic of having 30s. for widows and 20s. for aged people?

Mr. Griffiths: Because the only earnings which can possibly enter into it are her own earnings in the case of a widow, but in the case of aged people it is 20s. for each. That is a material point. Moreover, we have to remember that the widow is under retirement age, is not on a pension. We are imposing a retirement condition on the payment of pensions, and surely, retirement must be expressed in some way and in some amount of earnings which are permissible and beyond which the pension would be affected. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) has moved an Amendment to add certain, words at the end of the Clause, and they are:
 and temporary employment shall not be deemed to be inconsistent with retirement.
One or two hon. Members indicated what they mean by "Temporary employment."I am not disposed at this stage to add these words, if at all. Temporary employment can, in many circumstances, mean regular employment. What is the meaning of the word "temporary"? Since I have been a Minister I have learned that there are temporary civil servants who work full time, the only difference being that they are not established I remember some years ago that we received 14 days' notice to terminate our contract, after which we were regarded as temporary workers; but we worked full time.
The distinction which the Bill seeks to draw at the point of a man's retirement is not between temporary and permanent employment but between employment followed as the man's livelihood and employment which is supplementary. We include in Clause 20 these words in Subsection (2, a, ii):
 notwithstanding that he is engaged or intends to engage in a gainful occupation, if he is engaged or intends to engage therein only occasionally or to an inconsiderable extent or otherwise in circumstances not inconsistent with retirement.
It will fall to the tribunal, and eventually to the Commissioner, to define those words. If we were to put in words like "temporary employment"They might come to be defined as " regular employment." Someone with a regular job might come along and claim that it was temporary employment and that he was entitled to pension, as he was doing it in his retirement. The Commissioner might


hold that that man was in temporary employment. There is that possibility.

Mr. C. Williams: Will the Minister give some sort of idea whether, in the case of short, seasonal work of periods of three or four weeks, it is the intention of the Government to allow a person to take temporary employment of that kind, provided that he does not use the opportunity to undercut other people?

Mr. Griffiths: That is part of the very serious problem involved in this matter. Hon. Members are suggesting that persons who are retired and are in receipt of pension ought to be permitted, without loss of pension, to take, for a definite period, what is actually full employment. Is it not clearly right that if a person feels, at 60 or 65, that he can and ought to go on working, at harvesting or other work for a month or six weeks, he ought to be paid the appropriate trade union rate? Then he would not be in retirement and should come off pension and on to wages till the job is finished. Then he should come back on to pension. I am sure that that is the right way to do it. I have tried to be fair and reasonable and I think we have been so in the Subsection to which I referred. I have given consideration to the Amendment, and I am afraid that I shall have to ask the House not to accept.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have not spoken on this Amendment so far. It seemed to me the Minister was weakening, in that he said he could not consider this at this stage. May we take that as implying that when this Bill goes to another place the Government will not be deaf to the entreaties on this matter? The sort of case I have in mind is that of the retired agricultural worker who may be needed for part-time work in the harvest, or in some job of that sort. If he said that is covered by Subsection (2, a, ii) I should feel we were satisfied. I am not quite clear from his answer whether that sort of case— which is why we moved the Amendment —is met. We have a real justification for moving this Amendment, because in the Committee stage the Parliamentary Secretary said:
If employment was inconsiderable, if the intention of retirement was there, if a person only went to do a job for a short time so as to give someone else a necessary hand, it would be grossly unfair if he were penalised.

In a second statement—which is why we have put down an Amendment to omit Subsection (5)—the Parliamentary Secretary said something different:
 … so far as persons who go back to work for a normal week and a normal wage are concerned, they would in fact lose their pension for that reason. The Regulations provide for an average of earnings, so that whether there are fluctuating earnings of, say, ten shillings one week, thirty shillings the next, and fifteen shillings the next, they are averaged to arrive at 20s. If a person went back to regular work and earned 10 for three weeks, he would lose his pension for those three weeks."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A; 12th March, 1946: c. 209, 213.)
It seemed to us that those two statements were somewhat inconsistent, because the first one says that if a person only went to do a job for a week so as to give someone a necessary hand, it would be grossly unfair if he were penalised. What worried us was that, in the first statement, the Parliamentary Secretary seemed to have conceded our case, but in the second statement, he seemed to take a more rigorous view. We now have a statement from the Minister that Subsection (2, a, ii) of this Clause in fact meets the case. In view of his explanation I am not satisfied myself that it would meet the case of a retired man who wanted to do agricultural work. As we all know, agriculture is so much in need of labour at the moment; the situation is really desperate. For the next few years ahead it may well be the case that a man who has retired, or who does only a little hedging or ditching, might go back for a short period.
This is precisely the sort of practical point to which we must pay some attention during the Report stage. I have attempted to brief myself as fully as possible. Hitherto today we have not had any opportunity to give our attention to details. I must draw the attention of the House to the apparent inconsistencies in the statements of the Parliamentary Secretary during the Committee stage. I say " apparent," because in his second statement he did do his best, I think, to defend the position. If we are to accept the second position as true we are, therefore, disappointed over his first statement, and disappointed that this Clause, as drafted, will not meet our case. I do not think the Government have met the point put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake). If they are unable to meet that point tonight


the only way we on his side of the House could get any satisfaction would be if the Government would say they would use the resources of another place to alter the Bill in this respect, and that the Minister would think a little more about it. Without that I am afraid we should not be satisfied.

11.15 p.m.

Captain Marsden: I appreciate the great attention which the Minister has given to this point. Not being on the Committee, it is one of the points in which I have been very interested, particularly as I have been approached by so many men in my constituency who are approaching 65 or are over 65 years of age. The sum of 2os. is not very much. I fear the difficulties the Minister will have are practical difficulties. There are different types of retired men. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) referred to fishing. Down in Surrey there is a large number of men who are over 65 who do casual work. A large number do gardening. Every job they take will be temporary employment, but cumulatively those jobs amount to permanent employment. If they earn as much as 10s. in a day, in two days they earn £1, and are not free to earn any more without the fear of losing pension. Does the right hon. Gentleman propose that these men should lay off on the other days of the week, able and fit men anxious and willing to work? There are numerous golf clubs in Surrey. The Minister will probably know better than I, but I think there are about 40 golf clubs in Surrey. They are all short of caddies. The minimum rate for one round in Surrey for caddies—I emphasise that this is the minimum—is 7s. 6d. Therefore, at the weekend we have the caddie masters imploring these men to turn up, and most of the men will go away with £1 in their pockets at the end of the day. The caddie masters implore them to turn up on Sundays, too, saying that there is no harm in it; but they are afraid that if they do that they will lose their old age pensions. These are some of the practical difficulties that will arise if the right hon. Gentleman restricts the amount which may be earned without loss of pension to £1. I strongly advise him to alter the sum to 30s.. which would be reasonable.

Mr. Pritt: I would appeal to hon. and right hon.

Gentlemen who moved this Amendment to withdraw it, for this reason. I understand the object for which they are moving it, and the anxieties which they feel, but I think that if they leave the matter alone, it will achieve substantially their objective. Looking at it as a lawyer, I feel that the words in Subsection (2, a, ii) would quite clearly, on any reasonable ruling, exempt agricultural labourers who did a substantial amount of harvest work or any similar work, to an inconsiderable extent; whereas if the proposed words are put in we shall not only make the Clause much too wide in some respects for its general purpose, but may give it an odd reflex action, by making it work worse in other respects. It is a difficult piece of drafting. I think it has been done rather well. It will probably be conducive to reasonable instructions by the tribunals who have to deal with it. It will be neither too wide nor too narrow. Were it altered it might lead to wrong rulings. I think it is best left alone.
What the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) said about the two statements of the Parliamentary Secretary, which seemed to be a little inconsistent, brings me to this sort of difficulty that I have often mentioned in the House in the past. The Parliamentary Secretary or any Minister who is not a lawyer, generally has to tell the House or the Committee, as the case may be, what instructions civil servants have advised him to give. But the instructions that will prevail in the end are the instructions given by the tribunal that has to adjudicate. I have often defended civil servants in this House in the past, so, perhaps, I may be forgiven on this occasion for saying that the only point on which civil servants are wrong 75 per cent. of the time is that of their view of the meaning of words that they recommend. They are not necessarily wrong, but the courts may disagree with them, and the courts have the last word. I think that these are about the best words for the job which the right hon. Gentleman wants to do

Mr. Molson: Since the hon. and learned Member, with his great legal knowledge, has been explaining this, would he explain what effect Subsection (5) will have upon the earnings?

Mr. Pritt: Quite frankly, I would rather not. I have devoted myself to one topic,


to which I have given some attention. I cannot see that the Subsection to which the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) has referred has any effect on what I have been saying. If I am being asked for gratuitous legal advice, I will not give it.

Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks: By a remarkable series of coincidences, it frequently happens in this House that I have the honour to follow the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt). It is a happy occasion when a mere solicitor is so fortunate as to be handed such an excellent brief by such a learned hon. Member. He has very largely answered the question which caused me to refrain from rising to speak before the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the arguments which had been put forward by my hon. Friends on this side of the House. I was expecting the right hon. Gentleman to say that the first Amendment we are discussing was unnecessary, because the wording of Subsection (2, a, ii), in so far as it means anything, meant temporary employment. But the right hon. Gentleman did not avail himself of that argument. In fact, as I understood him, he went so far as to indicate that those, words specifically excluded temporary employment. Whether they do or not, as the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith has said, it will be for the tribunal to decide. If the tribunal has to decide the interpretation of the words already in the Clause, it is a comparatively small matter for the tribunal to overcome the difficulty to which the Minister referred, of defining what is temporary employment. It would be far easier for the tribunal to say what was temporary employment than to say whether a person is intending to engage in a gainful occupation or is engaged in a gainful occupation. For instance, a man may intend to engage in a gainful occupation permanently. On the other hand, he may be persuaded, against his original intention, to continue in temporary employment he has obtained. Where do we stand then? If it is temporary employment to begin with, he is debarred from gaining the benefit, but if his temporary employment continues week after week he apparently comes within the Clause. It would be of added benefit to the Minister, not only to clarify his Clause, but in order to carry out his intention, if he were to

accept the words contained in this Amendment.
Then again, there is the question of what is " an inconsiderable extent." Suppose a man has a permanent employment for one day a week; is that temporary? If so, he is debarred. But it cannot be temporary because it is permanent, though limited. Is it limited so as to be inconsiderable? That is a matter for the tribunal. Surely it is easier for the tribunal to say whether or not employment is temporary? While on that point I wish to refer to a type of case which has already been partially referred to. It appertains particularly in my own locality. There is the case of the jobbing gardener who has retired. He may have been an agriculturist, he may have been a regular gardener. He now has knowledge and experience, but not the physical ability to enable him to take up a permanent job. Therefore, he goes out for half a day every now and then. He is a tremendous asset to the neighbourhood; he is doing a really constructive and useful job of work, growing vegetables and so on, and yet, if he is paid more than 20s. a week—and he is worth that—he suffers for it. In that respect I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this is by no means the first time we have been involved from this side of the House—it is not a party question —with other Governments. We have tried, on exactly the same point, to obtain amelioration for the old age pensioner who was similarly discriminated against and similarly affected adversely by the existing provisions. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), when he was at the Exchequer, saying that nothing could be done about it, and I am sure he would bear me out if he were here. The reduction of the old age pension must continue if the man earned above the present limit of earnings because of the administrative difficulties.
Now, however, the right hon. Gentleman is setting up an entirely new organisation, and he can start from the beginning. He is undertaking some of the most complicated administrative machinery to carry out a most widespread net of immense complexity affecting half the population of the country, and this is a trivial incident for him to put right. I know he agrees that it is a fair thing


and one which appeals to his heart as well as to his conscience.
There is just one other point I want to make arising from what the Minister has said. He referred to the exploitation of old age pensioners and to cases he knew where they had suffered in the wages they had been paid because their old age pension had been taken into account. But may I put this point of view to him? If he enforces the provisions of this Bill too rigidly he will preclude these elderly people from gaining beneficial employment at all, because when a person retires at the age of 65, particularly in the agricultural industries with which I am most familiar, it is generally because he is partially incapacitated, very often from rheumatism or some disease of that sort. He is not worth economically to the farmer, his employer, a full rate of wage because he cannot do a full day's work, and, therefore, it is only upon the basis that he is paid a partial rate for a partial job that the farmer can employ him. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman is to enforce for that man a full rate for a partial job he is going to put him out of employment altogether. We do not want that; it is not good for the man or for the industry, and, therefore, I ask the Minister to reconsider these two points and to see whether, as my right hon. Friend has suggested, it cannot be arranged in another place to meet the points of the arguments which have been put forward

Sir J. Mellon: I had some difficulty in following the argument of the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) that the insertion of these words would narrow the effect of Subsection (2, a). The words "Temporary employment " have been criticised as being too indefinite, but it seems to me that they are quite as definite as the words " occasionally or to an inconsiderable extent " which appear in the Bill. The only reason I have heard the Minister give for objecting to a man receiving a pension while he is in full employment is the fear that the receipt of the pension may be used to depress wages. If that happened, of course, it is admittedly quite wrong. We all regard that as wrong, because a man is worthy of his hire and he should receive as much as he is worth. By the same token, surely, we should argue that the pension

should not be reduced because a man is earning more than a certain amount. If he has a contractual right to his pension, it is reasonable that he should get his full pension in addition to any wages he could earn. It is one of the few deplorable remaining features in this Bill that a man should be discouraged from earning as much as he can because his pension may be reduced in consequence.

Amendment negatived.

11.30 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke: I
beg to move in page 21, line 26, at the end, to insert:
 (6) Subject to the provisions of this Act—

(a)any employed person who has attained pensionable age may elect that he will not if he continues in regular employment receive any such increment to which he may otherwise become entitled under subsection (4) of this section and if he so elects he shall thereafter pay no contributions in any period during which he is engaged in regular employment after reaching pensionable age; and
(b) Any self-employed person may elect under the circumstances contained in this subsection not to receive the increments to which he would otherwise be entitled under subsection (4) of this section and if he so elects his weekly contribution shall be at the rate of three shillings and tenpence per week:
Provided that in the case of the employed person the employer's contribution shall be paid at the normal rate, and provided also that this subsection shall apply only within the period of five years beginning with the appointed day.
I move this Amendment because I think it is well that the House should know exactly what Clause 20 does. I used some fairly strong words to the right hon. Gentleman in Committee on this subject. I told him I considered that the old people who went on working after reaching pensionable age were being victimised. The right hon. Gentleman disagreed with me. So I made further investigations into this matter, and in my humble way attempted the task of an actuary, or at any rate attempted to work out some figures to find exactly what we were asking, if we passed Clause 20 as it stood, from these people who went on working after reaching the pensionable age. A great deal of this argument hangs on paragraph 18 on page 24 of the Government Actuary's Report. In that paragraph we find that the Government Actuary's figures have been worked out on the basis that at the pensionable age


40 per cent. of the population will retire, that 30 per cent. will retire during the next five years, and that the other 30 per cent. will go on until the maximum age, which is 70, in the case of men, and 65, in the case of women, and will then retire.
It is important that we should try to consider how many people are going to be so affected when this Bill comes into operation, and by somewhat tedious calculations from Tables A and B in the Government Actuary's Report, it can be calculated that of the 869,000 men between the ages of 67 and 72 this year, 45,796 are likely to die this year. Of the 869,000, only 30 per cent. are expected to work until the age of 70, and that figure is 260,700 men. In other words, we have 260,700 men who, as the Government Actuary has assumed in making his calculations, will go on working until they reach the age of 70. I think it is important that we should realise how these people are going to contribute and should know how much the Government Actuary is relying on to be brought in by the people who die.
I realise that this argument can apply before pensionable age as well as afterwards; but there is one big difference, in my opinion, and that is, that anyone who goes on working after pensionable age is doing so in answer really to a national call. There is a great shortage of labour at this time, and we want a great many old people to go on working. I think the right hon. Gentleman does not intend that they should go on for ever, and he said in Committee that it was his intention, if possible, to allow people to retire earlier than 65 in the case of men, and 60 in the case of women. He actually said that when speaking on the matter of unmarried women. Hon. Members will notice that, in framing this Amendment, I have limited it to five years because I believe it is for this initial period when the Bill first comes into operation as an Act that this need is greatest. The figures which I have given to the House are difficult to comprehend at short notice, but I would like to say that, from all the calculations I can find, using the Government actuarial figures, in the case of the men who today are 65, by the time those who live are 70, the total amount which will have been contributed into the Fund, by their own contributions only, will be something in the neighbourhood of £69 million. The amount which the Government are

actuarially trying to rely upon in order to float this Fund, coming in as contributions which will never receive any benefit in return, works out at something like £4,600 a week. That seems to me to be a very staggering figure. My argument— and this is why I put the Amendment in the form in which it stands—is that I do not consider that it is fair that we should ask old people, who are answering a national call to go on working a little bit longer than they perhaps intended to do, to contribute to the scheme. If they have a sufficient number of contributions in the old scheme and they die, they have received absolutely nothing, nor can their dependants make a claim. There is absolutely nothing for them for any of the contributions which they pay, and these people have answered a national call. As I have shown, the figure which has been used in the Government Actuary's original calculation seems to be fantastic with regard to this type of person. I am prepared to admit that up to the pensionable age everyone in this scheme has to take the rough with the smooth. The argument can actually be applied to those who have not reached pensionable age, but after that I believe we should give people who answer this call some privilege for their response to the call. Therefore, what I have suggested is that the Minister should give these people who go on working after pensionable age the option either of accepting his terms under Subsection (4) of Clause 20, or, alternatively, of not demanding the increment they would receive under Subsection (4) if they live, and in reward for not claiming the increment, that these people should not be required to pay contributions after reaching pensionable age if they go on working.
I am not going to bore the House with any more figures, because it is extremely difficult at so late a stage for the right hon. Gentleman to take them in at one fell swoop. I would just say that concerning the contributions, I have done my best to work out some figures actuarially, and so far as I can see, what would be required to cover sickness to be expected between the pensionable age and retirement would be covered by the employer's contribution. For that reason, I suggest that in the case of the employed persons who go on working, their contribution should be dispensed with and no further contribution should be called for.


In the case of the self-employed, there we have to make up for the employer's contribution, and that is why I have put down 3s. 10d., and now that the right hon. Gentleman is bringing the self-employed up to benefits identical with those of the employed, we can get a comparison of the proportion of the self-employed contribution which reduces that of the employer in the case of the employed person. I do hope that if the Minister can completely " debunk " my argument he will do so. It he can produce an argument which will refute mine, I shall be delighted. But, as it stands, I am very concerned because these old people who go on working will get no benefit at all if they die before they reach the age of 70, or 65 in the case of women.

Major Digby: I think that nobody can have read the Report of the Government Actuary without having been struck by the way in which the old people in this country are going to increase. In fact, in 30 years' time, we shall have double the number, roughly, that we have today. For this reason, everything should be done to encourage the older people to go on working longer than they would otherwise do. If they do not, our labour force will be correspondingly smaller. Therefore, we must ensure that, when people elect to go working between 65 and 70, and do not exercise their right to retire, they should have every advantage in so doing. So far as I have been able to work out the figures, there is little or no incentive from the economic point of view for a man to work when he has passed 65 years of age. The total amount he will get will not be greater than that of the man of the same age who retires at 65 and lives to the same age. On the other hand, there are many people who die between 65 and 70, so that many men who go on working between those years will die without receiving their retirement pension at all. In fact, the rate at which the mortality rate goes up between 65 and 70 is very striking. In the case of a man of 62 the expectation of death during the following year, according to the Government Actuary's Report, Table A, is.0260. In the case of men of 67 we find that the expectation of death is as follows: for " all men ".0414 whereas for " married men "It is somewhat less—.0376. I think hon. Members may be surprised at these figures. In any event,

I feel that we should take all the steps we can to make sure that those who go on working from 65 to 70 should be given every possible inducement, and that is the purpose of this Clause.
It may be said there may not be many who will wish to avail themselves of the advantages offered by this Amendment, that there will not be many who will wish to forgo the increment they would get at 70, but there must be quite a lot of people who go on working after 65 who may be a little pessimistic about living until 70. There are certain to be many people who, by that time, have got tired of paying these high contribution rates; particularly is that likely to be so in the case of self-employed persons. Therefore, I submit to the House that there is a very real case for this Amendment, which will give an additional advantage, an additional choice, to those who answer the call, as my right hon. Friend has said, to go on working when they would otherwise wish to retire in order to try and do something for the country.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) and the hon. and gallant Member for West Dorset (Major Digby) raised this matter on the Committee stage, and we had a very long discussion. I am sure they will appreciate that this is a matter better suited for full consideration in Committee than it is at this hour of the night and at this stage of the Bill
I appreciate the point they put forward, and I have done my best to try and understand it. We say in this Bill, when a man has reached the age of 65: " Make your choice. If you retire you get this pension; if you do not retire, but go on working, you do not get a pension but you earn an increment."It is quite true that, whilst he goes on working, he is adding an increment to the pension he gets when he retires; if he dies before he takes his pension he has lost the pension he would have got at 65. There it is, and what the hon. Member says is, " Give the person a pension at 65."That is, to go on working after 65 freezes his pension at the 26s. and adds no increment to it but exempts him from contributions.

Major Legge-Bourke: I think the right hon. Gentleman has got that wrong. We do not ask that he should receive 26s.


After he eventually retires he receives 26s., but not until he retires.

Mr. Griffiths: Very well, he does not receive that pension, he goes on working and he does not get the increment but is exempt from contribution. The hon. and gallant Gentleman raised that point a long time ago, and we argued whether we should or not. In any scheme of this kind I am afraid we cannot start giving options. I should like the hon. Gentleman to consider, in view of the fact that contributions now stand to be exempt from Income Tax, whether he would look at these figures all over again. If he looks at these figures now he will find the increment is a very much better advantage than when he raised it before. I cannot accept this, whatever may be the actuarial considerations, if it introduces a principle of option. The man has now the option to retire at 65, or to go on and get the increment. That is plain and straightforward, and I do not think there will be any complications.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I want to thank the Minister for giving so much attention to this point to which my hon. Friends have devoted much thought. If in a future incarnation they should desire to become Government actuaries, I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will know where to look for such officials. Those of us who have been taking a prominent part in the proceedings on this Bill have had a great deal of correspondence from persons in the country, asking us to give a right of option, that is to say, to contract out of the scheme in one way or another. I think the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right, that attractive as contracting-out schemes are, it is very difficult to concede them in an all-in in-

surance scheme. But the right hon. Gentleman must not underestimate the importance that many persons in the country attach to that option. I simply want to say to them, as they will be following these Debates, and to the House, that we are not able, unfortunately, to encourage the contracting-out system in a Bill like this because, if you do encourage it, it is not fair to all the other contributors. This is a small refinement of the contracting-out system which my hon. Friends have themselves invented after working out the matter with considerable assiduity. I wish the Minister had seen his way to accept it but, as he cannot do so, I thank him for the care and attention with which he has followed all the actuarial calculations, so accurately worked out by my hon. Friends.

Amendment negatived.

Further consideration of the Bill adjourned.— [Mr. Whiteley.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), to be further considered upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — ESTIMATES

Sir Frank Sanderson discharged from the Select Committee; Mr. Cutbert added.—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT

Resolved: "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

Adjourned accordingly at Eight Minutes to Twelve o'Clock.